The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Archive for January, 2013

Issue 84 [@ 1:30:17]: Robert Spencer – “If we consider that if only we changed our policies toward Israel and if only we changed our policies toward Iraq or changed our policies towards something else, if only we hadn’t taken out the Mosaddeq regime in Iran in 1953 and other things people have said to me. These ideas are ridiculous. They are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the motives and goals of the Jihadists. This is not a conflict that was created with the creation of the state of Israel or a conflict that was created when American armies went into Iraq. The global Jihad has gone on without interruption, without any significant interruption since the 7th century. And it only declined in force and activity at periods when the Islamic world was too weak to prosecute it.”

Rebuttal 84: Once again the documentary tacitly makes a broad swipe totally disconnected from the contrary facts on ground, in history and even morality. It cleverly interjects Israel, Iraq and Mosaddeq, yet glosses over for what these words stands for in the world history or in the moral sense of humanity. The first two are occupations and the last is the overthrow of a democratically elected government and its leader in the Middle East, all by none but Spencer’s democratic ‘West’ and he has the moral cheek to justify these atrocities rather than apologize for infliction of permanent scars on the land and psyche of the indigenous peoples of those lands. To any counter reactions to the oppression of the ‘West’ from those lands and its peoples, he is quick to label it ‘Jihad’ in terms of its distorted meanings that this documentary has not wasted a breath in trying to create for its audience. He further unflinchingly inflates his distortion of the same term ‘Jihad’ into a perpetual ‘global Jihad’ in the past, present and future.

Since Spencer manufactured a new term ‘global Jihad’ or ‘global war’ by Muslims on non-Muslims, it begets to understand the anatomy of global Muslim body, before it is dissected to see if it is involved in a ‘global Jihad’.

The total population of Muslim World is 1.6 billion. Below is a reference table to determine percentages of the Muslim population.

1,600,000,000 = 100% of Muslims
160,000,000 = 10% of Muslims
16,000,000 = 1% of Muslims
1,600,000 = 0.1% of Muslims
160,000 = 0.01% of Muslims
16,000 = 0.001% of Muslims
1,600 = 0.0001% of Muslims
160 = 0.00001% of Muslims
16 = 0.000001% of Muslims

Further, the countries with major Muslim population are enumerated below:

Indonesia 204,847,000
Pakistan 178,097,000
India 177,286,000
Bangladesh 145,312,000
Nigeria 75,728,000
Iran 74,819,000
Turkey 74,660,000
Egypt 73,746,000
Algeria 34,780,000
Morocco 32,381,000
Iraq 31,108,000
Sudan 30,855,000
Afghanistan 29,047,000
Ethiopia 28,721,000
Uzbekistan 26,833,000
Saudi Arabia 25,493,000
Yemen 24,023,000
China 23,308,000
Syria 20,895,000
Malaysia 17,139,000
Russia 16,379,000
Niger 15,627,000

If Spencer’s alleged ‘global jihad’ is happening then his war needs able bodied men. If we stretch the age group for fighting in the range 15-44, then it makes 48.7% of the Muslim population that can actually fight. Of these, men make less than half, which can be rounded to 25 percent of population of a country. Thus no more than 1/4th population of a Muslim country can actually fight. [Ref: The Future of the Global Muslim Population. Pew Forum on Religion and Cultural Life]

Now, even if 1% i.e. 16 million Muslims of the world are fighting the alleged ‘global Jihad’, then it would need scores of countries above with all their men of ages 15-44 dedicated to a full time fight, while their whole country is on a war footings. Thus for a ‘global Jihad’ to manifest many Muslim countries must be at war with the West simultaneously. How much war noise the world is hearing of this so called Spencer’s ‘global Jihad’? Answer is factually a ‘global silence’, which only proves the hyperbole of the documentary and its audacious fear mongering of a fear that does not exist, neither now, nor in history. Realistically, most of the global silence that is broken is by the boots on the grounds of the West and Israel. It can thus be safely stated about Spencers of the documentary that they are ‘seeing’ things that do not exist, a definite sign of a psychotic state of mind individually and Folie à deux collectively of the said documentary experts, its screen writers, researchers and producers.

With the fiction of global Jihad out of the way, let’s focus on the myth of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’, Israel, only if the Americans knew.

On the website of “Council for the National Interest” various American diplomats, congressmen, journalists, legal experts are interviewed in a Youtube video. It is interesting to note that these experts cut to the bottom of it all when they answer the fundamental question asked:

Sara Powell, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs @ 0:37 – “…The big question you ask today is why do they hate us? Well that is a damn good question to be asking.”

In the same video above, firstly, the Palestinians rebut the premise of the said natural question:

Hanan Ashrawi, A Palestinian Leader for Democracy @ 1:00 – “Nobody hates the Americans. People certainly resent American policy.”

Various Americans appear on the video to answer the above question. The following are excerpts of the the video:

Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law @ 3:38 – “I spoke with head military lawyer of IDF Joel Zinger and I said ‘I spent two week here [in Israel], it is clear you people are inflicting Nuremberg crimes on the Palestinians, exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What’s you explanation?’ He said ‘Military necessity’. Notice he did not disagree with me. I said ‘that argument was rejected at Nuremberg when the lawyers for the Nazis made it’. So, then he said ‘Well, we have public relations people in the United States and they handle these matters for us.’”

Andrew Killgore, Former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar @4:18, nails it on the head when he states – “Arabs and Muslims have to be made look bad in America and America has to be made look bad to them.”

What Ambassador Killgore said is the factual answer to the current Issue 84, when he stated as to what was the purpose of this documentary by Spencers et al. is and why its experts of hate are paid for what they do, which is – “Arabs and Muslims have to be made look bad in America and America has to be made look bad to them.”

Mr. Spencer, at least smile when you are on camera – see this link. The same link also exposes the the network of Islamophobes and “misinformation experts”:

…Among those who support Spencer’s endeavors are Pamela Geller of Stop the Islamization of America, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, and David Horwitz of the David Horwitz Center. The web of connections between the aforementioned names and organizations is striking. Geller and Spencer are in fact co-founders of Stop the Islamization of America, as well as co-founders of a lesser known organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative. According to Fear, Inc., donations made to Stop the Islamization of America are received by Spencer’s own organization, Jihad Watch’s PayPal account, implying that the two organizations are more closely linked than one might expect. Additionally, Spencer has spoken out in support of David Yerushalmi’s campaign against the supposed risk of the implementation of Sharia Law here in the United States. Yerushalmi, of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), is also Geller’s personal attorney. Spencer has also spoken at Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum, and in turn Pipes has praised Spencer’s book, Stealth Jihad, calling it a “pioneering survey of the stealth jihad whose ambition and subtlety threaten the continuity of Western civilization,” a striking claim. Spencer has also served as a contributing writer to Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism. In 2010, Spencer spoke on many panels with Gaffney, such as a panel entitled “Terror from Within,” and has openly supported Gaffney’s claim that Obama has an Islamist agenda…

The website – http://ifamericansknew.org/, by an American journalist and diplomats succinctly elucidate the historical amorality on map of the world aka Israel, with assertions based upon facts which to Spencer might be a reverse fiction:

A Synopsis of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict [pdf – download]

FOR CENTURIES there was no such conflict. In the 19th century the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish – living in peace.

Zionism

IN THE LATE 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as Zionists, they represented an extremist minority of the Jewish population. Their goal was to create a Jewish
homeland, and they considered locations in Africa and the Americas, before settling on
Palestine.

At first, this immigration created no problems. However, as more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine – many with the express wish of taking over the land for a Jewish state – the indigenous population became increasingly alarmed. Eventually, fighting broke out, with escalating waves of violence. Hitler’s rise to power, combined with Zionist activities to sabotage efforts to place Jewish refugees in western countries, led to increased Jewish immigration to Palestine, and conflict grew.

UN Partition Plan

FINALLY, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene. However, rather than adhering to the principle of “self-determination of peoples,” in which the people themselves create their own state and system of government, the UN chose to revert to the medieval strategy whereby an outside power divides up other people’s land.

Under considerable Zionist pressure, the UN recommended giving away 55% of Palestine to a Jewish state – despite the fact that this group represented only about 30% of the total population, and owned under 7% of the land.

1947-1949 War

WHILE IT IS WIDELY reported that the resulting war eventually included five Arab armies, less well known is the fact that throughout this war Zionist forces outnumbered all Arab and Palestinian combatants combined – often by a factor of two to three. Moreover, Arab armies did not invade Israel – virtually all battles were fought on land that was to have been the Palestinian state.

Finally, it is significant to note that Arab armies entered the conflict only after Zionist forces had committed 16 massacres, including the grisly massacre of over 100 men, women, and children at Deir Yassin. Future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, head of one of the Jewish terrorist groups, described this as “splendid,” and stated: “As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, Thou has chosen us for conquest.” Zionist forces committed 33 massacres altogether.

By the end of the war, Israel had conquered 78 percent of Palestine; three-quarters of a million Palestinians had been made refugees; over 500 towns and villages had been obliterated; and a new map was drawn up, in which every city, river and hillock received a new, Hebrew name, as all vestiges of the Palestinian culture were to be erased. For decades Israel denied the existence of this population, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once saying: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”

1967 War & USS Liberty

IN 1967, Israel conquered still more land. Following the Six Day War, in which Israeli forces launched a highly successful surprise attack on Egypt, Israel occupied the final 22% of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 – the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since, according to international law it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, these are occupied territories and do not belong to Israel. It also occupied parts of Egypt (since returned) and Syria (which remain under occupation).

Also during the Six Day War, Israel attacked a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing and injuring over 200 American servicemen. President Lyndon Johnson recalled rescue flights, saying that he did not want to “embarrass an ally.” (In 2004 a high-level commission chaired by Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found this attack to be “an act of war against the United States,” a fact few news media have reported.)

Current Conflict

THERE ARE TWO primary issues at the core of this continuing conflict. First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when it is largely of foreign origin. The original population of what is now Israel was 96 percent Muslim and Christian, yet, these refugees are prohibited from returning to their homes in the self-described Jewish state (and those within Israel are subjected to systematic discrimination).

Second, Israel’s continued military occupation and confiscation of privately owned land in the West Bank, and control over Gaza, are extremely oppressive, with Palestinians having minimal control over their lives. Over 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are held in Israeli prisons. Few of them have had a legitimate trial; Physical abuse and torture are frequent. Palestinian borders (even internal ones) are controlled by Israeli forces. Periodically men, women, and children are strip searched; people
are beaten; women in labor are prevented from reaching hospitals (at times resulting in death); food and medicine are blocked from entering Gaza, producing an escalating humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces invade almost daily, injuring, kidnapping, and sometimes killing inhabitants.

According to the Oslo peace accords of 1993, these territories were supposed to finally become a Palestinian state. However, after years of Israel continuing to confiscate land and conditions steadily worsening, the Palestinian population rebelled. (The Barak offer, widely reputed to be generous, was anything but.) This uprising, called the “Intifada” (Arabic for “shaking off”) began at the end of September 2000.

U.S. Involvement

LARGELY DUE to special-interest lobbying, U.S. taxpayers give Israel an average of $8 million per day, and since its creation have given more U.S. funds to Israel than to any other nation. As Americans learn about how Israel is using their tax money, many from across the political spectrum are calling for an end to this expenditure.

Toppling of Mosaddeq and his elected government on August 19, 1953 and replacing it with a despot monarch is one of morally repugnant fallacy of the power drunk West that has come to haunt it. This imposition of monarchy was not only reversed by the will of the Iranian people in 1979, but has removed the facade of what ‘Westernized’ democracy means when the same West gives legitimacy of veneer of ‘democracy’ to the de facto apartheid in Palestine. This is the question that common man on the Muslim streets asks. It is these questions which are being asked in more and more lands and with more and more depth by the people who are overthrowing throwing their own despot dictators that were imposed upon them by the same West. When these questions are asked aloud, then efforts are made by the same West to squash those voices under the military boots on ground. Apparently, Spencer is totally blind to all this, and why not, because he is singly funded and supported by the same ‘democratic apartheid’ forces. Below is a comprehensive historical review and analysis of significance of Mosaddeq and his legacy in the Middle East that strips naked any legitimacy of assertions by Robert Spencer:

Mosaddeq, Iranian Oil and the Coup of 1953
Professor Nazeer Ahmed

The coup that toppled the Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed Mosaddeq had all the ingredients of a James Bond movie: a charismatic but fallible democratically elected popular hero, international intrigue and spy agencies, turncoat mullahs, thugs, street gangs, patriots and a despotic but handsome young king with a scheming sister and a beautiful queen. There is a prize at the end of the movie, that is, the riches of Iranian oil. The difference is that in the deadly game of geopolitics, the events of 1953 determined the fate of a proud, ancient nation and fueled the pent up energies that erupted with volcanic convulsions in the Iranian revolution of 1979, followed by the deadly Iran-Iraq war (1979-87) and the ghastly events that led to the invasion and destruction of Iraq (1992-2010).
The primary players in this drama were the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), the Iranian nationalists led by Mosaddeq, the religious establishment led by Kashani, the communist Tudeh party, and Shah Reza Pevlavi of Iran. There were clients and followers. The British government backed AIOC. The nationalist support base was the urban middle class in Tehran and the major cities. The mullahs had their base in the impoverished slums of the cities and in the countryside. The communists, supported by the Soviet Union, looked to the workers and the artisans for support. The Americans were reluctant entrants to the melee, but when they did intervene, they sealed the fate of Iran and launched it on a trajectory, which in historical hindsight, led to the Khomeini revolution of 1979. The democratically elected leader of Iran, Mosaddeq, was toppled, arrested, tried and sentenced, and the voice of the nationalists was silenced.

There were winners and losers in the fray. The Americans were the clear winners. In the post-coup oil grab, an oil consortium was formed to replace the Anglo Iranian Oil Company and divided up the riches. American oil companies took 40% shares in the consortium where they had no prior stake. Standard of New Jersey, Socony, Standard Oil of California, Texas Company and Gulf, each received 8%. The British retained a substantial interest with a 40% stake. The rest was divided up between Dutch and other international oil companies. The communist Tudeh party was decimated. The mullahs were suppressed. But the success came with a heavy price. Resentment built up in Iran over the American intervention, and when it did blow up in 1979, it was the far right religious establishment that was the beneficiary of the revolution. Unlike the nationalists who knew how to speak the language of compromise, the religious right was uncompromising in its relations with the west. American influence, hoisted on Iran on the back of the despotic Shah, disappeared after 1979.

History is a guide but it is only a guide. It does not repeat itself. Wisdom demands that individuals and nations learn from history and do not try to replicate it. The Will of God moves on the canvas of history with inexorable momentum, creating new facts, revealing the Divine hand in the affairs of man and nature alike. Men and women of intellect observe these Signs, learn from them and guide their destinies with equity and justice. Those who violate justice suffer, and ultimately perish. That is the law of history.

We take our point of departure the Constitutional Revolution of Persia in 1906. It was a momentous event which shaped the history of Iran in the 20th century. It was the first such revolution in the Middle East and it presaged the Young Turks Revolution in the Ottoman Empire in 1908. It awakened an entire nation to its existential possibilities. It touched all segments of Iranian society and made them politically aware. It established a majlis (parliament), elected by popular suffrage, and transformed a despotic, absolute kingship to a constitutional monarchy.

The constitutional reforms did not alter the intrigues of foreign powers or their schemes to dominate, control and subjugate Iran. The principal players were the British who were firmly entrenched in India and the Russians who, having consolidated their colonies around the Caspian Sea, were looking for an outlet to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. Both powers preferred a weak Iran ruled by a pliant Shah than a resilient one energized by democratic institutions. Without consulting the majlis or the Shah, the two powers signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 in St. Petersburg, Russia, partitioning Iran between a Russian sphere of influence in the north and a British sphere of influence in the South. A small area around Tehran was left as a buffer state between the two zones. Russian Cossack troops moved in from the north and occupied Azerbaijan and Kurdistan while Anglo-Indian troops moved into Baluchistan and the districts around the Persian Gulf. Similar understandings were reached about Afghanistan and Tibet. The Convention replaced the Great Game between the British Empire and Imperial Russia for control of Central Asia and Afghanistan and forged a détente between the two imperial powers which allowed the two to focus on the challenge from the rising power of a unified Germany in continental Europe.

In 1908, the British geologist Reynolds struck oil in Masjed Soleiman, Iran, This was the first of the large oil finds that changed the history of the Middle East, and indeed the history of the world. The British were the first to exploit the discovery. The Burmah Oil Company formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (the precursor of British Petroleum) as a subsidiary. In 1913, the British Government bought a 50% stake in the company. APOC thus became a commercial venture of the British Government. The oil concession, granted under duress in 1901 by a weak Iranian government, was lopsided in favor of the British with Iran receiving 16 percent of the net profits, calculated using suspicious accounting practices. The Iranians had no way of knowing what these profits were because they did not have access to the books. APOC grew rich while Iran remained poor.

World War I broke out in 1914. Iran was wooed by Turkey, Germany, Russia and Britain as an ally but Iran wisely decided to remain neutral. This decision, however, did not protect it from the imperial chess game. Iranian territory was used as battleground. The War ended with the capitulation of Germany and the Ottomans. The stresses of the War exacerbated the tensions within Czarist Russia which exploded in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and pulled out of the War. The French and the British, heady in their triumph, imposed harsh terms on Germany and carved up the Ottoman territories. By the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1919, Britain took Palestine and Iraq while France helped itself to Syria and Lebanon. Arabia was captured by the Saudis. Britain tried to establish a protectorate over Iran. However, the majlis and Shah successfully resisted this attempt. In 1924-25, the Saudis, encouraged by Britain, moved in from the desert and captured the Hejaz which included the cities of Mecca and Madina. Thus was born the modern state of Saudi Arabia which was to play a pivotal role in the oil equations of the twentieth century.

Iran, weak, corrupt and bankrupt, was fertile ground for foreign intrigue. The Bolsheviks continued to meddle in Iran and tried to set up puppet communist governments in Rasht and Azerbaijan while the British firmed up their control of Iranian oil and maintained their military presence in the south. The last of the Khajar monarchs, Ahmed Shah was unable to contain the chaos. Iran was coming apart at the seams. Alarmed by the spreading anarchy, a young colonel Reza Khan, marched on Tehran in 1921 at the head of a Cossack brigade, and brought a semblance of stability to the capital. He gradually expanded his powers, first becoming the War Minister and then the Prime Minister. In 1923, the majlis deposed Ahmed Shah Khajar and appointed Reza Shah as the monarch. Thus was born the Pehlavi dynasty.

Reza Shah proved himself to be a far sighted monarch. He surrounded himself with capable administrators, brought corruption under control, built schools and industrial plants, introduced modern education, constructed roads, built the Trans-Iranian railroad, introduced universal health care, and spearheaded the Women’s Awakening Movement (1936-41). In 1934, he established the University of Teheran. It was he who changed the name of his country from Persia to Iran (1936) because the Persians were only one group in his composite nation which included Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs and Kurds.

On the legislative front he reaffirmed the constitution, reformed the marriage laws (1931) and removed the compulsory wearing of veils. Minorities, including the Sunnis, the Armenians, the Zoroastrians and the Jews were given equal rights. The emancipation of women was resented by the religious establishment but the Shah deftly contained their objections. For his reforms, many Iranians nationalists consider him to be the father of modern Iran.

On the international front, Reza Shah invited American economists to reform his tax collection and fiscal administration. Italians were hired to supply and train the Iranian navy. German engineers built a host of industrial plants and Lufthansa Airlines connected Tehran with Europe. In 1928 he abrogated the 19th century capitulations to the Europeans under which European offenders were judged by their own juries rather than the Iranian legal system. He transferred the printing of Iranian money from the British Imperial Bank to the National Bank of Iran. Well aware of the presence next door of the Soviet Empire and the British Indian Empire, he was careful to avoid dependence on any one foreign power so as not to invite military intervention by any of them.

Reza Shah was less successful on the oil front. The British juggernaut held Iranian oil tightly in its grip. Reza Shah sent his minister of court Teymourtash to London to negotiate a wide range of issues including a revision of the 1901 D’Arcy concession which had granted exclusive rights to the British to prospect for oil in all of Iran. Iran received only 16% of the profits from the Anglo Iranian Oil Company but there was no independent audit of the company books to ensure that the profits were calculated correctly. The Shah asked for 25% of the profits and a reduction in the area of concession but the long and arduous negotiations lasting over five years came to naught. Imperial Britain was unwilling to budge. However, in 1933 the Shah made an about-face and concluded a hasty agreement with APOC on slightly better payment terms and reducing the area of concession to 100,000 square miles but at the cost of extending the life of the D’Arcy concession by another 30 years.

World War II erupted in 1939 and Iran declared its neutrality, as it had done in WWI. However, in 1941, the Soviet Union and Great Britain, in a blitzkrieg, invaded and occupied Iran and forced the Shah into exile. His young son, Mohammed Reza was hoisted onto the peacock throne. Reza Shah was suspected of being too close to Hitler. The geopolitical reason was that the Allied Powers needed a supply corridor to the Soviets through Iran.

WWII demonstrated the critical importance of oil. The nation that controlled oil controlled the engines of war. Oil was no less important for peacetime economies. It was for this reason that the first act of President Roosevelt at the conclusion of the Yalta conference (1945) was a dash to Suez, Egypt where he met King Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and cemented a strategic relationship that remains a cornerstone of United States foreign policy.

It was this post-war world, dominated by oil, which saw the rise of Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran, arguably one of the most colorful personalities of the post war era. Mohammed Mosaddeq was born into an aristocratic family in Tehran in 1882 and received his education at the University of Paris and the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. He was elected to the first majlis after the Constitutional Revolution in 1906 and held important positions over the years as governor of Fars province, Finance Minister and Foreign Minister. In 1944 he formed the Jabhe Milli or National Front of Iran together with some of the leading political figures of the day. The goal of the Jabhe Milli was to end the foreign domination of Iran and to establish democracy. As oil was the principal reason for foreign domination, the goals of Jobhe Milli included nationalization of Iran’s oil resources.

Nationalization was a popular issue in Iran. Negotiations with the oil companies went nowhere. Not only were the foreigners draining Iranian resources while paying scant compensation to Iran, the presence of oil was an excuse for foreign intervention and direct or indirect occupation. Foreign domination fostered corruption. All the major factions in the Iranian body politic supported nationalization: the communists, the nationalists, the mullahs and the monarchists. The Shah vacillated.

Mosaddeq’s moment in the sun came in March 1951 when Prime Minister Haj-Ali Razmara was assassinated and the democratically elected majlis (national parliament) voted for full nationalization of oil. In April 1951, the majlis elected Mosaddeq as the prime minister. Mosaddeq was a consummate orator, a master of public theatrics, a cultivated diplomat and a deft politician. He was the man of the hour who could articulate the yearnings of Iranian society to shake off the foreign yoke.

Mosaddeq was unyielding in his stand on nationalization. Britain responded by pulling out its technicians from the oil refineries, blocking Iranian assets in foreign banks, boycotting Iranian oil and blockading Iranian ports. The loss of oil from Iranian oil wells was made up by increasing production in the oil wells of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Oil production fell from 240 million barrels in 1950 to 10 million barrels in 1951. Oil revenues plummeted. The Abadan refinery shut down. Mosaddeq’s plans for reconstruction and industrialization came to a grinding halt.

Greed, power, naiveté, obstinacy are as much characteristics of nations as they are of individuals. So many of the issues between nations can be resolved on the basis of equity and sound business principles. Half a loaf for me and a half for you. That is a win-win proposition. But no! Greed and power goad powerful nations to take the entire loaf—and more- and deny even a crumb to the weaker ones. Britain was obstinate in its refusal to concede a 50:50 formula and accept transparency in the company operations so that the profits of the oil company could be assessed correctly and independently. This was bad business. On the other hand, Mosaddeq was rigid in his stand on complete nationalization and was not willing to let the British in. This was bad politics. As a result, an entire nation suffered.

Nations, like individuals, are prisoners of their historical experience. It is like driving on the freeway with your eyes riveted on the rear view mirror and losing sight of an oncoming truck. Britain was looking at Iran through the imperial lens, even though it had lost India and the days of Pax Brittanica were gone. It was unyielding and lost out to the Americans. Mosaddeq lived in the heady post war years when newly independent nations sought a utopian world, losing sight of global power politics and the interests of global players. He demanded too much and got nothing.

There is a consistency and predictability to the response from the industrialized powers whenever their hegemony is challenged. Economic boycott, freezing of assets, trade embargoes, travel restrictions and massive propaganda are standard tools. When these fail, military force is an option, often as a group attacking a weak prey. In the aftermath, terms of capitulation are dictated which allow the victorious powers unlimited access to the natural resources of the vanquished land and control over its political and economic institutions. Alas! One would have hoped for a world in which the industrialized nations sat down across the table with non-industrialized nations and negotiated an equitable distribution of the benefits from the application of technology of the industrialized nations and the exploitation of natural and human resources of the host nations.

Faced with an acute economic crisis, Mosaddeq resigned and called for elections. According to some accounts, British intelligence was very active in influencing the elections, paying off influential businessmen, legislators, street gangs, newspaper editors and columnists to influence the elections. There were four principal players in the electoral melee: the nationalists who derived their support from the urban middle class; the mullahs who had their power base in the slums and the countryside; the communists who were supported by the workers, and the monarchists who were supported by the Shah. Into these complex equations was injected foreign intrigue and foreign money, creating a chaotic, unpredictable matrix.

The nationalists won the election and Mosaddeq became the democratically elected prime minister. To face the economic crisis, Mosaddeq asked for emergency powers from the majlis but the majlis refused. He also asked for the power to appoint the War Minister and the Army Chief of Staff as stipulated in the constitution but the Shah refused. Mosaddeq resigned and the Shah appointed a pragmatic, old time politician Ahmed Ghavam as the prime minister. Ghavam was disposed to negotiate with the British over oil but mass demonstrations forced his resignation and Mosaddeq was once again appointed the prime minister. This time, the majlis gave him emergency powers for six month.

Mosaddeq strengthened his political base by appointing a powerful cleric, Kashani as majlis speaker and forming an alliance with the Tudeh party. He limited the powers of the Shah to what the constitution had stipulated and strengthened the legislative powers of the majlis. He instituted land reforms, broke the feudal land structure, established village councils and gave the peasants a share in their crops. These reforms made him enormously popular at home but there was also resistance from the old guard. The resistance grew as the British boycott took its toll and British money did its work. Former allies turned against him. Kashani, who Mosaddeq had trusted as speaker of the parliament, denounced him.

Unable to dislodge him through their own efforts, the British turned to the United States for help in toppling Mosaddeq. But its approach to President Truman in November 1952 was rebuffed. However, when General Eisenhower became president in January 1953, Churchill, the prime minister of Britain, renewed his plea. The cold war was at its height and there was anti-communist hysteria in Washington. Churchill made the case that Mosaddeq was too close to the communist Tudeh party and would take Iran into the Soviet orbit. Iran was too strategic a prize to be ignored, for its oil, its location and its size. President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles signed on to a joint British-American plan to topple Mosaddeq.

This was the first known large scale foreign intervention by the United States to topple a democratically elected popular government. Pious professions to the contrary, the Americans toppled a democracy and hoisted a despot on an ancient, proud nation which was struggling for the same ideals articulated by Thomas Jefferson.

In May 1953 the Central Intelligence Agency sent Dr. Wilber to the Middle East to meet with his British counterpart Darbyshire and together coordinate the operations to topple Mosaddeq. General Fazlulla Zahedi was chosen as the point man within the armed forces to stage a coup. Provocateurs were paid to stage street demonstrations and create chaos. Newspaper editors were bought off to run inciting articles. CIA operatives pretending to be communists threatened the ulema that if they opposed Mosaddeq they would be harmed. This alienated the mullahs. The agencies worked through princess Ashraf, the half sister of the Shah, to gain his concurrence for the plot. Roosevelt, the grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt was appointed as the overall coordinator for the mission.

On August 13 the Shah issued two decrees, one firing Mosaddeq as the prime minister, and another appointing General Zahedi to replace him. Both decrees were in violation of the constitution which stipulated that only the majlis had that privilege. However, the initial uprising was a failure. Army units loyal to Mosaddeq and the constitution blocked the renegade units headed by Zahedi. The Shah fled the country, first to Baghdad and then to Rome. General Zahedi went into hiding. Forces loyal to Mosaddeq took over key installations and renegade soldiers either fled or were arrested. Roosevelt himself was advised to abandon the plot and return home.

However, on August 19, a new attempt was made; this time led by Iranian CIA operatives. The Shah made the announcement from Baghdad that he had indeed removed Mosaddeq from office and installed Zahedi as the prime minister. Street hirelings were back in action. Some of the army officers switched sides. A mob incited by provocateurs took over the telegraph office. Telegrams were sent to district headquarters that a coup had toppled the government. Soon the police headquarters fell. Army tanks surrounded Mosaddeq’s offices and arrested him. The radio station was captured in the evening. Zahidi was brought out from hiding and made the announcement of a successful coup.

The Shah returned to Iran, this time as a puppet of foreigners. Dissidents were hunted down, punished or executed. The communist Tudeh party was crushed. Several army officers who were sympathetic to the Tudeh party were tortured. The clerics were sidelined and persecuted. One of these clerics, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was first imprisoned and then exiled to Iraq and then to France. Twenty five years later it was the same Khomeini who triumphantly rode back into an Iran which had turned fiercely anti-American, had toppled the Shah, and had taken hostages at the American embassy in Tehran. The saga of American domination of Iran was over.

The American intervention of 1953 that toppled Mosaddeq was a historical blunder for the United States. There was initial jubilation in American official circles over the success of the coup. But the price was a destruction of the moral credibility of America in the eyes of the world. Many in the newly independent nations had looked to America as the champion of democracy, the land of Jefferson and Lincoln. The coup demonstrated that the United States would not shy away from toppling a democratically elected government when it suited her interests. It brought the United States down to the same level as Great Britain. The ease with which a successful coup was concluded encouraged similar ventures in Latin America and elsewhere, further eroding America’s moral credibility and stature.

The role of the American press during these events was a sad chapter in the annals of journalism. In their book, The U.S. Press and Iran, Dorman and Farhang make the following observation: “The American news media more often than not followed the cues of foreign policy-makers rather than exercising independent judgment in reporting the social, economic and political life of Iran under the Shah…..Throughout the association of the United States with the shah, the press tended to serve Washington’s short sighted policy goals by portraying political opposition to the regime in such a way as to suggest that the shah’s critics were nothing more than benighted reactionaries”.

The overthrow of Mosaddeq derailed Iran’s experiment with democracy and its evolution towards a representative government. The fruits of fifty years of a national struggle for democracy and representative government, dating back to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, were destroyed. Instead, the United States and Britain hoisted a despot on the peacock throne. The frustrations and anger felt at this intervention erupted with uncontrolled fury in the revolution of 1979, but this time it was not the western trained nationalists who led the charge but right wing mullahs who wanted to purge Iranian society of all things western.

Iraq War II was inflicted on peoples under a tyrant who had already suffered crippling sanctions for a decade before. The premise of this war was pure fabrication of Iraqi WMD. In his speech President George W. Bush, the leader of the “Free World” made the following premise for his war, all of which was a lie and is excerpted below:

… thousands of tons of … mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas … growing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles … to disperse chemical or biological weapons … exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. … smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. —[Office of the Press Secretary, October 7, 2002, President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat, Remarks by the President on Iraq, Cincinnati Museum Center – Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio – White House archives]

The human costs as determined by public health experts of Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are as follows:

Death rates were 5.5/1,000/year pre-invasion, and overall, 13.2/1,000/year for the 40 months post-invasion.We estimate that through July 2006, there have been 654,965 “excess deaths”—fatalities above the pre-invasion death rate—in Iraq as a consequence of the war. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 were due to violent causes. Non-violent deaths rose above the pre-invasion level only in 2006. Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq’s population have died above what would have occurred without conflict. [The Human Cost of the War in Iraq A Mortality Study, 2002-2006; Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, School of Medicine; Al Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq; in cooperation with the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts – pdf download]

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq has spurred little new information on the scale of destruction in the 8 year, 8 month war [Iraq – The Human Cost, MIT University]:

* Population of Iraq: 30 million.
* Percentage of Iraqis who lived in slum conditions in 2000: 17
* Percentage of Iraqis who live in slum conditions in 2011: 50
* Number of the 30 million Iraqis living below the poverty line: 7 million.
* Number of Iraqis who died of violence 2003-2011: 150,000 to 400,000.
* Orphans in Iraq: 4.5 million.
* Orphans living in the streets: 600,000.
* Number of women, mainly widows, who are primary breadwinners in family: 2 million.
* Iraqi refugees displaced by the American war to Syria: 1 million
* Internally displaced persons in Iraq: 1.3 million
* Proportion of displaced persons who have returned home since 2008: 1/8
* Rank of Iraq on Corruption Index among 182 countries: 175

The club, that Robert Spencer belongs to, achieved the above tragedies for humanity on such a colossal scale that defy human intelligence and its innate morality. They achieved these goals in the past and are unrepentantly manufacturing newer lies for the future, by fabricating doubts be they against the governments, their peoples or their faiths. Such minds for lack of a better word are curse for humanity on a mega scale as they use the megaphones of pulpit, media, “democratic process” and “lobbies” that rubbish the facts on the ground, fabricate new lies and sell the concoctions of falsehood as truth in which the sole benefactor is Israel, while the whole world on the other hand is left to live and suffer with a gaping mouth for its notion of truth.

References:

Muslim World – Wikipedia
Countries with the largest Muslim populations (2010) – Wikipedia
The Future of the Global Muslim Population – Pew Forum on Religion and Cultural Life
Folie à deux – Wikipedia
U.S. Experts comment on U.S. policy towards Israel – Council for the National Interest
A Synopsis of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – IfAmericaKnew.org
Mosaddeq, Iranian Oil and the Coup of 1953 – Professor Nazeer Ahmed
President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat – White House
The Human Cost of the War in Iraq A Mortality Study, 2002-2006 [pdf download]– Johns Hopkins University
Iraq – The Human Cost – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Issue 83 [@1:28:53]: Serge Trifkovic – Author, Defeating Jihad – “In Islamic thinking the world is divided into the “House of Islam”, where Islamic politic has been established, where Allah rules supreme, and the “House of War” which is the rest of the world. This dichotomy is reminiscent of other totalitarian ideologies and most explicitly communism. Both Communism and Islam seek the end of history in this world. The end of history will come when either the whole of our planet will become “Dar-ul-Islam” or else the proletarian revolution brings the working class to power all over the world which will be the end of state, the end of money and the end of class oppression. In both cases it is possible to have a period of truce. It is possible to have what would we call in modern parlance peaceful existence but that peaceful co-existence is a tactical ploy and not a permanent solution.”

[@1:30:07]: Slide projected with voice: Sahih Al-Bukhari – Vol 4, Bk 52, Hadith 196

Allah’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, none has the right to be worshipped but Allah.”

Rebuttal 83: Above is a repeat of earlier false assertions by the documentary (see Issue 35, 44 and 76). The added twist in current issue is that before in Issue 37b Shoebat tried to juxtapose Mein Kampf with Jihad, and now Trifkovic is cleverly trying to equate Islam and Communism. Of note is that West recently came out of almost a century long cold war with Communism and the documentary wants to revive the same fear which taught the West how to be fearful in the first place and then to react in the same manner and violently out of that fear. The documentary is obsequiously trying to replace West’s fear of Nazism and Communism that have passed and ingrain it with a newer fabricated fear of Islam. The above issue is broken down as below.

Issue 83a: Serge Trifkovic – Author, Defeating Jihad – “In Islamic thinking the world is divided into the “House of Islam”, where Islamic politic has been established, where Allah rules supreme, and the “House of War” which is the rest of the world…”

Rebuttal 83a: This is a totally absurd logic when checked against Quran, Sunnah, Hadith and history, which was addressed in the previous Issue 44a and is reproduced here. Muhammad Ali in his book Religion of Islam [p. 426, pub. 1951] clarifies rebuts and expunges the notions of Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harb as follows:

Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam

With the new notion introduced into the word jihad, the jurists artificially divided the whole word into dar al-harb and dar al-Islam. Dar al-harb literally means the abode or seat of war, and dar al-Islam, the abode of Islam. These words are not used in the Holy Qur’an, nor are they traceable in any Hadith. Bukhari uses the word dar al-harb in the heading of one of his chapters: “When a people embrace Islam in dar al-harb” (Bu. 56:180). Two Hadith are mentioned under this heading, in neither of which do the words dar al-harb occur. The first speaks of Makkah, and its subject matter is that when, after the conquest of Makkah, the unbelieving Quraish accepted Islam; they were recognized as owners of property of which they had become masters, though it originally belonged to those Muslims who had fled to Madinah. The second speaks of Rabdhah, a place at a distance of about three day’s journey from Madinah, the lands near which were turned into pasture by ‘Umar and, on the owners’ protest, made over to them. Both Makkah and Rabdhah were at one time at war with the Muslims and on this account Bukhari speaks of them as dar al-harb. Dar al-Islam is evidently a place where the laws of Islam prevail and which is under a Muslim ruler. The use of dar al-harb in the sense of a place actually at war with the Muslims, is unobjectionable. But the jurists apply the word to all states and countries which are not dar al-Islam or under the Muslim rule, though they may not be at war with the Muslims, and thus look upon a Muslim state as being always in a state of war with the whole of the non-Muslim world. This position is not only inconsistent with the very basic principles of Islam but actually it has never been accepted by any Muslim state that has ever existed in the world. The difficulty has been met by some jurists by bringing a third class, called dar al-sulh or dar al-‘ahd, or a country which has an agreement with the Muslims. But even this does not exhaust the whole world. Many of the laws relating to war are based on this fictitious division of the world, for which there is not the least authority either in the Holy Qur’an or in Hadith.

Issue 83b: Serge Trifkovic – “…This dichotomy is reminiscent of other totalitarian ideologies and most explicitly communism. Both communism and Islam seek the end of history in this world. The end of history will come when either the whole of our planet will become “Dar-ul-Islam” or else the proletarian revolution brings the working class to power all over the world which will be the end of state, the end of money and the end of class oppression. In both cases it is possible to have a period of truce. It is possible to have what would we call in modern parlance peaceful existence but that peaceful co-existence is a tactical ploy and not a permanent solution.”

Rebuttal 83b: Once again above is another unsubstantiated rant by Trifkovic against Islam. His fear mongering of bringing ‘end of state, the end of money, and temporary truce as a tactical ploy’ might be acceptable for Communism but has nothing to do with Islam. While the ‘West’ i.e. Capitalism was scared of Communism resulting in the cold war costing mankind trillions of dollars, millions in human lives and decades of human suffering, Islam never felt threatened by Communism for the mere fact that Quran assures the failure of any unnatural doctrine. If the West were cognizant of Quran, it would had spared itself all the agony, because Communism right from its inception failed the fundamental test of a social order i.e. proportionate compensation for one’s efforts which in turn encouraged inaction over action by the individuals, that naturally resulted in its crumbling from within:

53:38. (The Scriptures say that) no soul that bears a burden shall bear the burden of another (soul).
53:39. And that a human being will have (to his account) what he strives for.
53:40. And that his strivings shall necessarily be seen (and evaluated),
53:41. Then will he be recompensed fully and fairly.

In order to implement its doctrine which was against the very basic fundamentals required for a social order, Communism had to adopt dictatorial means, which sometimes were in the form of individuals like Stalin, Chaushesku and Honecker, and at other times the all too familiar dictatorial state apparatus. Communism crumbled under its own incentive-less weight and from its spiritual apathy, the necessary ingredients for humanity in history and across geography. It was too dry to be swallowed by humanity.

Trifkovic is factually wrong when he further alleges that ultimate goal of Islam is for elimination of state and the natural classes therein. The rebuttal to him is from Quran itself e.g.:

3:164. Say, `Shall I seek a Lord other than Allâh whilst He is the Lord of all things?’ And no soul does anything (evil) but only against itself; no soul that bears a burden shall bear the burden of another. Then to your Lord is your return and He will fully inform you about that (truth) wherein you have been disagreeing.

3:165. And He it is Who has made you successors (of others and rulers) of the land, and He has exalted some of you over the others in degrees (of rank) so that He may try you by that which He has given you. Surely, your Lord is Quick at retribution; and He is all the same, Great Protector, Ever Merciful.

On the contrary, he is correct in one aspect in that under Islam class oppression and exploitation dissipates, which was the very basis for rise of Communism in the West to begin with:

4:1. O people [i.e. Jews, Christian, Muslims…whole of humanity], keep your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single being [i.e. ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL IN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS. THEY ARE ENDOWED WITH REASON AND CONSCIENCE – excerpt from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 of United Nations] and created its mate of the same (kind), and spread from these two [i.e. married pairs] many men and women. And keep your duty to Allah, by Whom you demand one of another (your rights), and (to) the ties of relationship. Surely Allah is ever a Watcher over you.

30:22. And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your tongues and colours. Surely there are signs in this for the learned.
49:13. O mankind, surely We have created you from a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other. Surely the noblest of you with Allah is the most dutiful of you [and not by mere association with certain RACE, COLOUR, SEX, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, NATIONAL OR SOCIAL ORIGIN, PROPERTY, BIRTH OR OTHER STATUS – excerpt from The Universal Declaration of Human Right, Article 2 of United Nations]. Surely Allah is Knowing, Aware.

3:103. And hold fast by the covenant of Allah [i.e. Quran] all together and do not be disunited. And remember Allah’s favour to you when you were enemies, then He united your hearts so by His favour you became brethren [WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF ANY KIND, SUCH AS RACE, COLOUR, SEX, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, NATIONAL OR SOCIAL ORIGIN, PROPERTY, BIRTH OR OTHER STATUS – excerpt from The Universal Declaration of Human Right, Article 2 of United Nations ]. And you were on the brink of a pit of fire [of mutual hate, envy, enmity and wars], then He saved you from it. Thus Allah makes clear to you His messages that you may be guided.

49:11-12. O you who believe, do not let a people laugh at (another) people [i.e. mock, ridicule or DISCRIMINATE on basis of RACE, COLOUR, SEX, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, NATIONAL OR SOCIAL ORIGIN, PROPERTY, BIRTH OR OTHER STATUS – excerpt from The Universal Declaration of Human Right, Article 2 of United Nations], perhaps they may be better than they; nor let women (laugh) at women, perhaps they may be better than they. Neither find fault with one another, nor call one another by (offensive) nick-names. Evil is a bad name after faith; and whoever does not repent, these it is that are the wrongdoers. O you who believe, avoid most of suspicion, for surely suspicion in some cases is sin; and do not spy nor let some of you backbite others. Does one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You abhor it! And keep your duty to Allah, surely Allah is returning (to mercy) again and again, Merciful. [Muhammad Ali, edited by Zahid Aziz]

Trifkoic names two systems, Communism and Islam without his any understanding for what they stand for. Communism evolved from a failed experience of the West with Christianity that was not only an impediment for human development but actually the cause for its decline. That is reflected in the following quotes from the fathers of Communism:

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” [Karl Marx]

“And when this act has been accomplished, when society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are now held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an irresistible alien force, when therefore man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes — only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.” [Friedrich Engels]

“Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.” [Vladimir Lenin]

The above outlook then naturally transformed into a state, the Soviet Union where Lenin did not see the replacement of religion with atheism as an end to itself, but wrote that it needed to be accompanied by a materialist weltanschauung:

“Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the eighteenth-century Encyclopaedists or the materialism of Feuerbach. This is beyond doubt. But the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels goes further than the Encyclopaedists and Feuerbach, for it applies the materialist philosophy to the domain of history, to the domain of the social sciences. We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion.” [Vladimir Lenin]

For a fuller discussion about the above quotes read – “Marxist‒Leninist atheism” [Wikipedia]

“Marxism is materialism”, pure and simple, and by implication everything thereafter viewed through Communistic prism including humans and their humanism are downstream constructs of materialism, inclusive of their physical, social and psychological evolutionary stages to their present day forms. This is diametrically opposite of Islam.

In Islam, human body and by implication the materialism itself is merely an instrument for its humanism, though a very important one. Concept of God and what He stands for is at core of all the mechanisms in Islam. It is from this God consciousness in Islam that every human and his humanism emerge and evolve. The extent of manifestation of this construct in an individual or the society is a direct reflection of the degree of its basic understanding and utilization of the concept of God. Matter and materialism is a subset for manifestation of God in our lives and our universe. What communism misses out on are the non-material aspects that drive the utility of matter, which like the invisible ‘dark matter’ are much larger in scope than the known ‘material’ universe. At least in our limited world the matter in other planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies at present is of limited use to be exploited by earthlings. Thus we are constrained to look at matter and how to use and distribute its benefits by different isms within the confines of the earth alone. The discussion of useful matter is immaterial beyond our lives on earth. To understand the interplay of material and non-material dimensions is the simple example of life. Materially there is hardly a difference of even an ounce between an alive and dead person. What separates the living from dead in Islam is:

28:88. … Everything is liable to perish but those (righteous deeds) by means of which you seek His attention…

It is this survival of the righteous deeds that the world history testifies to, are the objectives of Islam in one’s life. In a secular sense, through Islam one brings this historical experience of mankind of righteous deeds into realm of one’s existence and purpose of life, before the person himself becomes history. Each person is valued in Islam because each person contributes to history through individual goals, within his limited lifespan. Islam tries to make that individual contribution a positive one for oneself and for those with him and after him:

22:77. O you who believe! bow down and prostrate yourself, and worship your Lord and do good deeds so that you may attain your goal.

3:114. They believe in Allâh and the Last Day and enjoin good and forbid evil, and they vie one with another in (doing) good deeds. And it is these who are of the truly righteous.

Material sciences are limited to measurable dimensions of matter and its cohort, the energy, and out of this finite space one discovers its laws. But, the non-material aspects that envelop our existence and give purpose in this world are driven by the laws, the search of which have eluded every material path that man tried for their discovery, irrespective of hoarding, distributing or expunging of the said ‘material’ in one’s life under a particular ism. That includes all the experiments of isms by man including the Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Colonialism, Nazism, Fascism, Apartheid, Paganism, Spiritualism, Theism, Atheism, Materialism, and Asceticism. At the core of all these isms is to achieve good deeds for its votaries, though in all of them this objective is stratified differentially across different segments of its populace. In some it is capitalist over the working class, in another the worker over the capital, still in others it is one race over another, one language and culture over another, one region over another, one faith over another. All of these isms succeeded to a certain point in dimension of time and space, but they all fizzled out sooner or later in delivering good deeds the way those isms envisioned them initially. Why have they all failed? It is because of this failure of all the isms where Islam separates itself from them because it elucidates and guarantees the law of preservation of good deeds:

18:30. But those who believe and do deeds of righteousness (should know that) We surely do not suffer the reward of those who do good deeds to be lost.

11:114. … Surely, the good deeds wipe out the evil ones. That is a reminder for those who would remember.
11:115. And be you patiently persevering, for surely Allâh suffers not the reward of the doers of good to others to go waste.

3:114. They believe in Allâh and the Last Day and enjoin good and forbid evil, and they vie one with another in (doing) good deeds. And it is these who are of the truly righteous.
3:115. And whatever good they do, they shall not be denied its due recognition. And Allâh knows well those who guard against evil.

Islam lets each person’s individuality stand be it his race, region, culture, language, belief or material status. But, it demolishes the disharmonious barriers that have existed since eternity between unique identities of peoples, and that is why Islam claims the center stage for one world under God:

5:48. …And if Allâh had so willed He might have made you all one community (by force), but He wishes to show your perfection (the capacities and capabilities) that He has endowed you with. Therefore vie one with another in (doing) good deeds…

The non-material space of turmoil and peace – within the person, in interpersonal relationships, in social dynamics – are the prime determinants of one’s quest in life. It is these needs and the need to understand, predict and solve them that gave rise to social, psychological and political sciences, all of which combined have yet to achieve any substantial improvement of individuals’ distress, remove social discord or give any directions to the ever elusive utopia that every ism promises. In Islam the amalgam of material and non-material aspects of life are fully elucidated and their laws are already ‘discovered’, while the practical paths for their adoption identified:

5:48. …For each one of you did We prescribe a spiritual law and a well-defined way (–a code in secular matters). And if Allâh had so willed He might have made you all one community (by force), but He wishes to show your perfection (the capacities and capabilities) that He has endowed you with. Therefore vie one with another in (doing) good deeds. To Allâh is the return of you all, then He will inform you as to that wherein you were at variance.

Islam is not merely a lip service or a ritual of a ‘religion’, rather Islam is all about a code of action to achieve good deeds, individually and collectively:

6:158. Do they await only that the angels should come to them (with wars), or that (complete destruction from) your Lord should come (upon them), or that some of the signs of your Lord should visit them (with earthly calamities). The day when some of the signs of your Lord shall come, no soul, that did not believe earlier or accomplished some good deeds through (his) belief, will ever benefit by his faith. Say, `Wait, we too are waiting.’ [emphasis added]

When Quran states – Wait, we too are waiting, it essentially is declaring that Islam has and will stand the test of time for all its claims. This is an open challenge to all the isms out there of past, present and future:

3:83. Do they then seek a creed other than Allâh’s while all those that are in the heavens and on the earth submit to Him willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they shall be made to return?

29:6. And he who strives hard (in the way of Allâh) does it, infact, for his own good. Verily, Allâh is Independent of the worlds.
29:7. And those who believe and do deeds of righteousness We shall invariably rid them of their evils and We shall, of course, reward them according to the best of their deeds.
29:8. We have enjoined on a human being to be kind to his parents, but should they stress upon you to associate with Me things which you know to be nothing at all you shall not obey them. You shall all have to return to Me (after all). I shall tell you all that you have been doing (in your life).
29:9. And as to those who believe and do deeds of righteousness We will certainly admit them to (the fold of) the righteous.

Contrary to Trifkovic’s fear mongering of ‘end of history’ and by implication disappearance of every other ism but Islam, Quran prophesizes the survival of Christianity, though with a caveat of its mutual hatred, till the end of the times, a ‘moment’ which is recognized in the Bible as well:

5: 14. We took the covenant of those (also) who say, `We are Christians;’ but they have abandoned a good portion of what they were (reminded of and) exhorted with. So We have kindled enmity and hatred between (various sects of) them till the Day of Resurrection. And Allâh will soon inform them of all their machination.

3: 55. (Recall the time) when Allâh said, `O Jesus! I will cause you to die a natural death, and will exalt you to Myself and I will clear you of the unchaste accusations of those who disbelieve [-the Jews]. I am going to make your followers [-the Christians] prevail over the disbelievers [-the Jews] till the Day of Resurrection, then to Me (O people!) shall be your return, and I will judge all your differences. [-of note is that Muslim are also believers in Jesus as a prophet]

Trifkovic is thus proven false by Quran for his statement – ‘The end of history will come when either the whole of our planet will become “Dar-ul-Islam”’, by the mere fact that the above verses conclusively state that there will be survival of Christianity.

The sorry state of Trifkovic’s arguments can be judged by his allegations that are not based upon any facts on ground, in history or scriptures. In his rancor he conjures up hateful scenarios and smears them on Islam. He states – ‘Both Communism and Islam seek the end of history in this world.’ We will leave it to Carl Marx to rebut for the former, but for the latter the Quran speaks quite eloquently. Contrary to what Trifkovic alleges, instead of ‘end of history’, Islam is the very basis of ‘beginning of history’ for the mere fact that Islam is all about the everlasting concept of God:

57:3. He is (from) the very First (there was nothing before Him), and (He will exist to) the Last (there will be nothing after Him), and when nothing remains He will remain (He being an eternal Being). He is the Supreme Being (subordinate to no one). And (whereas He comprehends everything) He is Incomprehensible. He has full knowledge of everything.

19:40. It is We Who will remain after the earth and (all) who are inhabiting it have perished. To Us shall they all be returned.

Issue 83c [@1:30:07]: Slide projected with voice:

Sahih Al-Bukhari – Vol 4, Bk 52, Hadith 196

Allah’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, none has the right to be worshipped but Allah.”

Rebuttal 83c: This Hadith and its context was addressed before which can be read at the link – Issue 76a, with a minor difference that the above Hadith is a subset of another Hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24.

References:
Note: [text enclosed in square brackets above is not part of the original quoted sources]

Religion of Islam – Maulana Muhammad Ali
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – United Nations Organization
Marxist‒Leninist atheism – Wikipedia
Holy Quran – Nooruddin [unless stated otherwise, all verses quoted above are from this translation]
Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Zahid Aziz

Issue 82 [@1:26:12]: Video clip with inserted sub-title “Excerpts from Jihadist recruitment videos”. With mostly Arabic voice(s) in the background and/or audio overlay, a person loading the back of a blue colored SUV. Three artillery shells are shown under the back seat. Thereafter a masked driver apparently sitting in the same SUV rants with a jingoistic tone. Then the scene changes to open fields with a road. From a distance couple of army vehicles approaching towards the camera and a civilian brown colored car facing away from the camera parked on the same road. Background chanting of Allah-o-Akbar, the civilian and military vehicles cross and then there is a detonation against the second army vehicle.

Comment: The only thing that comes to the fore in this video (without understanding the audio in Arabic) is that different video clips are put together. The SUV that is loaded is totally different from the car that exploded. Besides, the SUV is loaded with plain looking artillery shells. In this day and age of war movies and video games, it is surprising that how can artillery shells explode by themselves without any mechanism attached to them. None of the parties in the video are identified, it could be anyone from anywhere. There is no clue about location of this video clips.

Issue 82a [@1:27:10]: Robert Spencer – “It’s unfortunate that there is no negotiating with Jihadists. There is no striking a deal with them…”

Rebuttal 82a: The specific Jihadists that Spencer is referring to are product of ‘West’ itself. Maybe Spencer can answer the ubiquitous question that is on everyone’s mind as to who encouraged, abetted and funded the global ‘Jihad’ that was initially directed against Soviets? To refresh Spencer’s memory he better take a look at the faces in this YouTube video where one finds the all too familiar face of Ronald Reagan, who represented not only the West in general but the American right in particular.

It all started in Afghanistan and Reagan is on the record – “These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Regan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985).

Reagan even dedicated Space Shuttle Columbia launch to Afghan freedom fighters – YouTube video.

President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski during a visit to the Afghanistan border from Pakistan addressed the Afghans: “We know of their deep belief in God that they are confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours and you’ll go back to it someday, because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause is right and God is on your side.” YouTube video.

It is essentially admitted by current American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton that America is responsible for this Jihadi mess – YouTube video.

Now some of those Jihadi elements have gone awry like a rudderless torpedo and the Spencers are crying foul. You reap, what you sow. Like heat seeking missiles, this Jihadi ideology was nurtured by Spencer’s West to be ‘infidel seeking’ for homing-in to their target. Before it was the Soviets, which once eliminated only refined the “Jihadi spirit” of the same Western trained, who have now the next ‘infidel’, the West itself as its next ‘holy mission’. Neither Jihadists, nor their Jihad have anything to do with Quran or Sunnah, nor equating of Jihadists with Islam by Spencer. These Jihadists were a purely Western necessity for its cold war and like a science fiction, the ‘computers’ of the Jihadists have broken away from their central command and are out there to get their Masters and everyone else. Spencer might call it error, but history calls it comedy of errors.

Issue 82b: “…Islamic law is very clear on that and here once again is an example; we need to take Islam seriously. Islamic law does not allow for treaties. It does not allow for negotiated settlements between Muslim states and non-Muslim states. All it allows for is a temporary period of up to 10 years of hudna or what is commonly translated as truce. To allow the Islamic forces to gather their strength. But that’s not the same as peace as we know it. That’s not the same as the absence of the state of war, that’s only a temporary lull. In a war that the Jihadists consider has gone on for 14 centuries and are willing to fight for 14 more.”

Rebuttal 82b: The above statement by Spencer, for lack of a better word, is an utter nonsense. Assuredly, Islam is the only religion and the constitution in the world that mandates as part of its doctrine for Muslims to make peace treaty with its opponents on every available chance. This is directly opposite of the totally fabricated and bogus statement by Spencer. The concept of Hudna was addressed in Issue 81c before.

Maulana Muhammad Ali in his landmark book “Religion of Islam” in Part 3, Chapter 5 – Jihad, under section Peace Recommended, writes:

Notwithstanding what has been said above, the Muslims were told to accept peace in the middle of war if the enemy wanted peace: “And if they incline to peace, incline thou also to it and trust in Allah; surely He is the Hearer, the Knower. And if they intend to deceive thee — then surely Allah is sufficient for thee”(8:61, 62). It should be noted that peace is here recommended even though the enemy’s sincerity may be doubtful. And there were reasons to doubt the good intentions of the enemy, for the Arab tribes did not attach much value to their treaty agreements: “Those with whom thou makest an agreement, then they break their agreement every time and they keep not their duty” (8:56). None could carry those precepts into practice better than the Holy Prophet, and he was so prone to make peace whenever the enemy showed the least desire towards it, that on the occasion of the Hudaibiyah truce he did not hesitate to accept the position of the defeated party, though he had never been defeated on the field of battle, and his Companions had sworn to lay down their lives one and all if the worst had come to the worst. Yet he made peace and accepted terms which his own followers looked upon as humiliating for Islam. He accepted the condition that he would go back without performing a pilgrimage and also that if a resident of Makkah embraced Islam and came to him for protection, he would not give him protection. Thus the injunction contained in the Holy Quran to make peace with the idolators if they desired peace, combined with the practice of the Holy Prophet in concluding peace on any terms, is a clear proof that the theory of preaching Islam by the sword is a pure myth so far as the Holy Qur’an is concerned.

To sum up, neither in the earlier revelations nor in the later is there the slightest indication of any injunction to propagate Islam by the sword. On the other hand, war was clearly allowed as a defensive measure up to the last. It was to be continued only so long as religious persecution lasted, and when that ceased, war was to cease ipso facto. And there was the additional condition that if a tribe, against whom the Muslims were fighting because of its aggressive and repeated violation of treaties, embraced Islam, it then and there became a part of the Muslim body politic, and its subjugation by arms was therefore foregone, and war with it came to an end. Such remained the practice of the Holy Prophet during his lifetime. And there is not a single instance in history in which he offered the alternative of the sword or Islam to any tribe or individual, nor did he ever lead an aggressive attack. The last of his expeditions was that of Tabuk, in which he led an army of thirty thousand against the Roman Empire, but when he found, on reaching the frontier, after a very long and tedious journey, that the Romans did not contemplate an offensive he returned without attacking them. His action on this occasion also throws light on the fact that the permission to fight against the Christians contained in (9:29) was also subject to the condition laid down in (2:190) that the Muslims not be aggressive in war. The opinion now held among the more enlightened European critics of Islam is, that though the Holy Prophet did not make use of force in the propagation of Islam, and that though he did not lead an aggressive attack against an enemy, in the whole of his life, yet this position was adopted by his immediate successors, and was therefore a natural development of his teaching.

The opinion is also due to a misconception of the historical facts which led to the wars of the early Caliphate with the Persian and Roman empires. After the death of the Holy Prophet, when Arabia rose in insurrection and Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, as engaged in suppressing the revolt, both Persia and Rome openly helped the insurgents with men and money. It is difficult to go into details of history in a book which does not deal with the historical aspect of the question {fn: dealt with this subject fully in my book The Early Caliphate}, but it would not be inappropriate to quote a modern writer who is in no way friendly to Islam:

Chaldaea and southern Syria belong properly to Arabia. The tribes inhabiting this region, partly heathen but chiefly (at least in name) Christian, formed an integral part of the Arab race and as such fell within the immediate scope of the new Dispensation. When, however, these came into collision with the Muslim columns on the frontier, they were supported by their respective sovereigns {fn: italics inserted}. — the western by the Kaiser, and the eastern by the Chosroes. Thus the struggle widened {fn: Sir W. Muir, The Caliphate, p. 46}.”

There is actual historical evidence that Persia landed her forces in Bahrain to help the insurgents of that Arabian province, and a Christian woman, Sajah, marched at the head of Christian tribes, from her home on the frontier of Persia, against Madinah, the capital of Islam, and traversed the country right up to the central part. Persia and Rome were thus the aggressors, and the Muslims in sheer self-defense, came into conflict with those mighty empires. The idea of spreading Islam by the sword was as far away from their minds as it was from that of the great Master whom they followed. Thus even Muir admits that, as late as the conquest of Mesopotamia by ‘Umar, the Muslims were strangers to the idea of making converts to Islam by means of the sword: “The thought of a world-wide mission was yet in embryo; obligation to enforce Islam by a universal Crusade had not yet dawned upon the Muslim mind {fn: Sir W. Muir, The Caliphate, p. 120}.” This remark relates to the year 16 of Hijrah, when more than half the battles of the early Caliphate had already been fought. According to Muir, even the conquest of the whole of Persia was a measure of self-defense, and not of aggression, on the part of the Muslims: “The truth began to dawn on ‘Omar that necessity was laid upon him to withdraw the ban against advance. In self-defense, nothing was left but to crush the Chosroes and take entire possession of his realm.”{fn: Op. cit., p. 172}

And if the wars with the Persian and Roman empires were begun and carried on for five years without any idea of the propagation of Islam by arms, surely there was no occasion for the idea to creep in at a subsequent stage.

The above argument is continued on p I-46, Introduction section of English Translation of the Quran by Maulana Muhammad Ali, Ed. Zahid Aziz.

If the enemy offered peace, peace was to be accepted, though the enemy’s intention might be only to deceive the Muslims:

“And if they incline to peace, you (must) incline to it also, and trust in Allah. Surely He is the Hearer, the Knower. And if they intend to deceive you, then surely Allah is sufficient for you.” — 8:61–62

The Holy Prophet made treaties of peace with his enemies; one such treaty brought about the famous truce of Hudaibiyah, the terms of which were not only disadvantageous, but also humiliating to the Muslims. According to the terms of this treaty “if an unbeliever, being converted to Islam, went over to the Muslims, he was to be returned, but if a Muslim went over to the unbelievers, he was not to be given back to the Muslims”. This clause of the treaty cuts at the root of all allegations of the use of force by the Holy Prophet.

It is a mistake to suppose that the condition to fight “against those who fight against you” (2:190) was abrogated at any time. It remained in force to the end. There is not a single direction in the latest revelation on this subject, in ch. 9, The Immunity, that goes against this condition. The opening verse of that chapter speaks expressly of “idolaters with whom you made an agreement”, and then, v. 4, excepts from its purview “those of the idolaters with whom you made an agreement, then they have not failed you in anything and have not backed up anyone against you”, thus showing clearly that the “immunity” related only to such idolatrous tribes as had first made agreements with the Muslims and then, violating them, killed and persecuted the Muslims wherever they found them, as v. 10 says expressly: “They respect neither ties of relationship nor covenant in the case of a believer”. Further on in ch. 9, the condition of the enemy attacking the Muslims first is plainly repeated: “Will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and aimed at the expulsion of the Messenger, and they attacked you first?” (9:13).

The waging of war on unbelievers to compel them to accept Islam is a myth pure and simple, a thing unknown to the Holy Quran. It was the enemy that waged war on the Muslims to turn them away from their religion, as the Holy Book so clearly asserts: “And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion, if they can” (2:217).

Quran has utter abomination towards breakers of treaties, irrespective of their faith:

8:55. Surely, the worst of beasts in the sight of Allâh are those who denied to believe (in the truth in the first instance) so they would not believe;

8:56. (Particularly) those with whom you entered into a pact, but every time they break their pact and they do not guard (against breach of trusts).

8:57. Therefore if you find these (breakers of trust) in battle array, then (by inflicting an exemplary punishment upon them) disperse those behind them so that they may be admonished.

The only basis of annulling a peace treaty is treachery by the enemy. Such an annulment has to be made publicly:

8:58. And if you fear (and have reasons to fear) treachery from a people, then annul (their pact) on terms of equality. Indeed, Allâh loves not the treacherous.

A Muslim cannot even help a fellow Muslim if there is an intervening treaty with non-Muslims:

8:72. Surely, those who have believed and have emigrated and strove hard with their possessions and their persons in the cause of Allâh (- the Muhâjirs), and who have given (them) refuge and helped (- the Ansâr), are friends one to another. But you are not responsible for the protection of those who have believed but have not emigrated until they do emigrate. However if they seek your help in (the matter of) faith, then it is binding upon you to help them except against a people between whom and yourselves is a treaty. Indeed, Allâh knows well all that you do.

Quran allows war only with peace treaty breakers:

9:1. (This is) a declaration of complete absolution on the part of Allâh and His Messenger (from all obligations) to those of the polytheists with whom you had entered into a treaty (but they broke it repeatedly).

9:2. So you may go about (freely O you breakers of the treaties!) in the land for four months (since the date of this declaration), and know that you cannot frustrate (the will of) Allâh, and (know) that Allâh will humiliate the disbelievers.

9:3. And this is a proclamation from Allâh and His Messenger to the people on the occasion of the Greater Pilgrimage (on the day of Sacrifice) that Allâh and His Messenger owe no obligation to these polytheists. If you (O polytheists!) turn to Him in repentance it is better for you. But if you turn away then know that you cannot frustrate (the will of) Allâh. And proclaim (O Prophet!) the news of a grievous punishment to these disbelievers;

Quran forbids war with peace treaty keepers:

9:4. Excepting those of the polytheists with whom you have entered into a treaty (and) who subsequently did not fail you in any manner, nor did they back up anyone against you. So abide by the treaty you had entered with them to the end of the term you have fixed with them. Allâh, surely loves those who keep their duty.

9:5. But when the prohibited (four) months (when no attack on the breakers of the treaties was permissible) have expired, slay such polytheists (who broke their treaties) wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every place from which it is possible to perceive the enemy and watch their movements. But if they turn in repentance and keep up Prayer and go on presenting the Zakât, leave their path free. Indeed, Allâh is Great Protector, Ever Merciful.

Even in a state of war, safety has to be assured to enemy who seeks protection:

9:6. And if any of the polytheists seeks your protection, grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allâh, then conduct him to a place where he feels himself safe and secure. That (treatment) is (to be meted out to them) because they are a people who have no knowledge (of Islam).

Quran cautions Muslims to keep the terms of treaty and monitor the intentions of the enemy:

9:7. There can be no treaty (on the part) of these Polytheists (after their repeated violations of the same) in the sight of Allâh and His Messenger. This, however, does not apply to those with whom you entered into a treaty near the Holy Mosque (at Makkah). So long as they keep true to (the treaty for) you, you should also keep true (in maintaining the treaty) for them. Allâh, surely, loves those who become secure (against the breach of trusts).

9:8. How (can there be a treaty with deliberate violators of agreements) while, if they get the better of you they would respect no bond, nor words of honour in dealing with you. They would try to please you with (mere words of) their mouths whereas their hearts dissent (from what they say), and most of them are perfidious.

4:88. How is it then with you, that you are divided into two parties regarding the hypocrites, while Allâh has overthrown them for (the sins) which they committed knowingly? Do you desire to guide him whom Allâh has forsaken? And he whom Allâh forsakes you shall not find for him a way (of his deliverance).

4:89. They would like you to reject the faith as they have done themselves, that you may be all alike; therefore, make no friends with them until they emigrate in the cause of Allâh. But if they turn back (to hostility), then capture them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take anyone of them as a friend or as a helper.

4:90. Different, however, is the case of those who join a people with whom you have a pact, or of those who come over to you whilst their hearts are constricted from fighting against you or fighting against their (own) people. If Allâh had so willed He would have given them power over you, then they certainly would have fought against you. Hence if they leave you alone and do not fight against you but make you an offer of peace then Allâh allows you no way (of fighting) against them.

4:91. You will find others (among these hypocrites) who desire to be secure from you as well as safe from their own people. But whenever they are made to have a recourse to hostility (towards the Muslims) they fall headlong into it (as if under compulsion). Therefore if they do not leave you alone, nor make an offer of peace to you nor withhold their hands (from being hostile), then capture them and kill them wherever you find them. And it is these against whom We have given you absolute authority.

There is another practical reason for Islam to be peaceful. If nothing else, it is the peace under which it thrives and spreads:

48:1. (Prophet! the treaty of Hudaibiyah is a great victory in that) We opened for you the way to (another) clear victory (which led to the preaching and expansion of Islam).

Issue 82c [@ 1:28:05]: Slide projected with a voice:

The Noble Quran, 47:4. So, when you meet (in fight, Jihad in Allah’s Cause) those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly on them (i.e. take them as captives)… Thus (you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam [i.e. are saved from the punishment in the Hell-fire] or at least come under your protection), but if it had been Allah’s Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (he lets you fight), In order to test you, some with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost.

Rebuttal 82c: Once again an out of context quote of a verse by Spencer, something that he is known for. The bold font above identifies an overstatement by the translators. In order to bring into full context the meaning of the said verse we only have to read the first verse of the same chapter, as identified below by bold font and then read it in conjunction with the bold font in v. 4:

47:1. Those [who had persecuted and displaced Muslims out of Makkah and then were on the verge of annihilating them in Medina,] who disbelieve and bar people from the path of Allâh, He renders their works go in vain,

47:2. But as for those who bear faith and do deeds of righteousness and believe in that which is revealed to Muhammad, for it is the very Truth revealed by their Lord, He has purged them of their sins and has improved their (spiritual and temporal) condition.

47:3. That is because those who disbelieve follow falsehood while those who believe follow the Truth (revealed) from their Lord. That is how Allâh explains their condition to mankind (to make them understand).

47:4. So (believers! now that you know the will of your Lord), when you meet in (regular) battle those who disbelieve [and bar people from the path of Allâh (v 47:1.)] strike off their heads. After you have bound them fast in fetters (as prisoners of war), then, afterwards, (release them, a must), either by way of grace or by (accepting) ransom. (That is the law,) until war lays down its weapons (and it is over). Such is (the ordinance of Allâh). Indeed if Allâh pleased He could have punished them (in other ways). But (the ways of warfare have been resorted to) so that He may reveal your worth at the hands of one another. As of those who are slain in the cause of Allâh He will never let their works go in vain.

The above verses are in congruity with other verses elsewhere in Quran outlined below which only highlight the defensive nature of wars that Muslims might have to undertake as a last resort:

2:190. And fight in the cause of Allâh those who fight and persecute you, but commit no aggression. Surely, Allâh does not love the aggressors.

2:191. And slay them (the aggressors against whom fighting is made incumbent) when and where you get the better of them, in disciplinary way, and turn them out whence they have turned you out. (Killing is bad but) lawlessness is even worse than carnage. But do not fight them in the precincts of Masjid al-Harâm (the Holy Mosque at Makkah) unless they fight you therein. Should they attack you (there) then slay them. This indeed is the recompense of such disbelievers.

2:192. But if they desist (from aggression) then, behold, Allâh is indeed Great Protector, Ever Merciful.

2:193. And fight them until persecution is no more and religion is (freely professed) for Allâh. But if they desist (from hostilities) then (remember) there is no punishment except against the unjust (who still persist in persecution).

2:194. (The violation of) a sacred month may be retaliated in the sacred month and for (the violation of) all sacred things the law of retaliation is prescribed. Then he who transgresses against you, punish him for his transgression to the extent he has transgressed against you, and take Allâh as a shield, and know that Allâh is with those who guard against evil.

Sorry Spencer, there is no passive turning of the other cheek to an aggression, neither Jesus turned it himself nor Muhammad and none of their followers either – John 18 (NIV):

22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.

23 “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?”

References:
Note: [text enclosed in square brackets above is not part of the original quoted sources. Some of the comments are excerpted quotes from the footnotes of “English Translation of the Holy Quran with Explanatory Notes” – Muhammad Ali, ed. Zahid Aziz]

President Ronald Reagan meeting Afghan Mujahideen in White House – YouTube
President Ronald Reagan dedicating Space Shuttle launch to Freedom Fighter in Afghanistan – YouTube
President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski addressing Afghan and invoking God – YouTube
United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton admitting U.S. helped create Al-Qaida – YouTube
John 18 (NIV) – Bible Gateway
Religion of Islam – Maulana Muhammad Ali
Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Zahid Aziz
Holy Quran – Nooruddin [all italicized verses above]