Why Ignoring "Allahu Akbar" is a Disservice

Unfortunately, zealotry has always been a fact of life.  I am not speaking of the original use of “zealotry” which, according to Wikipedia “sought to incite the people of Iudaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the holy land by force of arms” but of its modern interpretation which is a religious “nut.”  My biggest issue with Theism (aside from not being able to prove there is a “god”) is that the old saying of “a finite being cannot understand an infinitie one.”

Sure, there are people who claim to have been “called upon” by God to do His bidding (Joan of Arc on the plus side, Osama bin Laden on the negative), others who claim to have spoken with God.  The issue I have with these types of things is that if 10 different people saw an accident each will remember it differently, some people have claimed to have seen Elvis at the Waffle House, and, generally, people are pretty illogical and typically motivated by what words or actions will benefit themselves.

People and society are not, however, operating under an Atheistic belief system.  So we have Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan who screamed “Allahu Akbar” before murdering 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.  That phrase, “Allahu Akbar” is typically shouted before a Muslim starts doing some killing for the Almighty in whose name and wishes he or she is supposedly acting.

America is, despite what Nancy Pelosi and President Obama would have us believe, a Christian nation.  Our Founding Fathers, though sitting on the Theistic fence by being Deists, conceived of this nation under the belief system of Christiantiy (mainly Protestantism).  Yet despite this Christian basis of our society, it has become “unpopular” to bring up religious issues.  But the fact is the world is run by religion because almost everybody is religious.

Christianity used to be a fairly nasty religion what with the Inquisition, burning witches at the stake, and other tawdry things.  However Christianity went through a Reformation whereby belief in the Almighty was somewhat severed from the need to remain in the Dark Ages.  It took much longer for the Catholic Church to move away from some of these things (hence the creation of Protestantism) but still, progress towards belief in science, equal rights, economic advancement, and the value of the individual became possible.

Islam has not undergone a Reformation hence we are still hearing plenty of examples of “Allahu Akbar” throughout the world while references to ”God is Great” for Christianity are virtually unknown.

After the shooting rampage which, according to the man who did it, was based on religious beliefs we have President Obama saying:

“We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

Obama then departed to Camp David leaving us with only those words of wisdom.

I think it is quite clear what motivated the shooter, in the macro sense, to do his killing.  Maybe something besides his religious beliefs set him off, but a Muslim does not shout “Allahu Akbar” like that unless he’s acting under what he thinks are the wishes of the Almighty.

And this is where we as a society are missing things, to our great harm.

As they say in the recently ended Battlestar Galactica series, “this has all happened before and will all happen again.”  We saw how our media (and president) ignored the role of Islam when Pvt. William Long was gunned down by a Muslim in a jihad shooting back in June.  And so it will happen again this time.  And the next.  And the next…

Osama bin Laden has said many times (and he is not the only Muslim) that one of his motivations for attacking the “Great Satan” (to use the Iranian government’s prefered term for America) is because non-Muslims occupy the Holy Land in Saudi Arabia.  In fact, there have been American troops stationed near the Muslim holy sites of Mecca since Gulf War I and they show no signs of leaving (as much to “safeguard” oil supplies as to prevent the corrupt government there from being on their own should a revolution happen).  Osama bin Laden may have many other motivations however his statement about non-Muslims occupying the Holy Sites resonates with Muslims because it agrees with the Koran.  It is religiously based.  To ignore this point is like denying that fire ignites gasoline fumes.

When President Obama became president he made a big deal about “re-building” relationships with Muslims (yet he has never offered to remove U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia).  He gave a warm and fuzzy speech in Cairo that was somehow supposed to be the first step in making Americans (Christians) and Muslims friends.  his words were eloquent however he didn’t really address the main point which is Christianity vs. Islam.

Here is a chart I made at the time of his speech to show what I mean:

Notice how many times Christianity is mentioned?

While a simple graph cannot entirely capture the entire essense of Obama’s speech, I think it does show a few things… Terrorism is not mentioned at all.  Christianity is mentioned four times, Extremists mentioned eleven times, Religion mentioned 15 times.

From a Western perspective, Muslim nations clearly have issues with all sorts of things that we take for granted such as individual rights, discrimination, democracy, high life expectantcy rates, educational opportunities for both sexes, and dynamic economies.

That is because they are still living in the 14th Century because their religion has not undergone a Reformation.

And so we have “Allahu Akbar” shouted at a U.S. military base by an American soldier who is also a Muslim.

And Obama says we should not be “jumping to conclusions.”

President Obama is not to blame for what happened and it is not fair to lay the entire responsibility of broaching the “unpolite” topic of religion upon him, but clearly since he painted himself as a bridge between Christianity and Islam (his middle name is “Hussein” after all) he does seem to be avoiding all of the tough questions (which is something he promised not to do).

By ignoring the “clash of civilizations” because Liberals think no society should be “judged” (even if they stone women for infidelity or murder people for being gay) the real issues remain buried.

In psychology we know that if someone has an “issue” and tries to supress it this “issue” will find its way to the surface somehow, usually violently.

And by continuing to ignore the theological basis of “Allahu Akbar” President Obama does us all a grave disservice.

For some other interesting reading on the subject of Islam check out the related posts links below.