William
Kilpatrick is an author and lecturer who taught for many years at
Boston College and whose articles on Islam have appeared in numerous
publications, including Investor's Business Daily, FrontPage Magazine,
the National Catholic Register, and World
magazine. He has written several books,
including Psychological Seduction and Why Johnny Can't Tell Right
from Wrong, and his most recent book, Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the
West, will be released next week from Ignatius Press.
Kilpatrick recently spoke with Catholic World Report about
Islam and its growing significance for the West.
CWR: You begin by
noting that, yes, there is some common ground between Christianity and
Islam, but the differences are far more important. What are the most important
differences between the two religions?
William
Kilpatrick: Beneath the surface similarities lie important and largely
irreconcilable differences. Islam rejects the Trinity, the Incarnation, the
Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. In fact, associating partners with Allah—as
Christians do—is considered the very worst sin. Chapter nine, verse 30 of the
Koran says, “the Christians call Christ the son of Allah…Allah’s curse be on
them: how they are deluded away from the truth.” Moreover, the God of the Koran
bears little resemblance to the God worshipped by Christians and Jews. Although
he occasionally expresses solicitude for Muslim widows and orphans, he shows
little in the way of mercy, compassion, or justice, and he appears to hate
non-Muslims with a vengeance. The Koran is full of lurid descriptions of the
fate that awaits unbelievers in hell.
The two faiths also
differ sharply in their vision of paradise. Heaven for Christians means union
with God and the fellowship of the saints. For Muslims heaven means union with
72 “high-bosomed” and eternally youthful virgins. That’s for males, of course;
the Koran is unclear about what sort of heaven women will enjoy. These differing
views of paradise have very serious practical implications in the here and now.
The Islamic version of paradise creates quite an incentive for young men to try
to get there as quickly as possible. And, according to Islamic tradition, the
only sure route is by “killing and being killed in the cause of Allah.” Take
Mohamed Atta. Due to an airline mistake his luggage was left behind in Boston on
the day of the 9/11 flight. When authorities later opened it they found a
wedding suit, a bottle of cologne, and a letter expressing his anticipation of
marriage to his 72 heavenly wives. As Richard Weaver wrote, “ideas have
consequences.”
CWR: The Second
Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church mention Islam
briefly and rather positively. Otherwise, there isn’t much in the way of
official Church statements on Islam. Why is that? Is there a need for
such?
Kilpatrick: Nostra Aetate, the
Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the relation of the Church to
non-Christian religions, includes two short paragraphs sketching out several
commonalities between Christians and Muslims. It must be remembered, however,
that finding commonalities was precisely the task set forth in the initial
paragraph of the declaration: “She considers above all in this declaration what
men have in common….” In light of this and in view of its brevity, Nostra
Aetate can hardly be considered to be the Church’s final word on
Islam—although some Catholics have taken it to be just that. The statement about
Muslims in the Catechism is even shorter—only 44 words—and merely
echoes Nostra Aetate’s observation that both Christians and
Muslims worship the One God.
How do you account for
this minimalist treatment? The probable answer is that at the time of the
Vatican Council, militant Islam was fairly quiescent, and the Church fathers
were far more concerned with the threat from atheistic communism. Now that Islam
is once again set on subjugating the rest of the world, Catholics need to be
given a fuller picture of Islam, if for no other reason than that their survival
may depend on it. Catholics and other Christians have been lulled into
complacency by the simplistic notion that Christians and Muslims share much in
common. For example, when a Catholic reads that Muslims worship the same God and
revere the same Jesus he does, he might easily jump to the conclusion that Islam
is really a religion of peace and that terrorists are “misunderstanders” of
their Islamic faith. That is a very naïve view to hold in these very dangerous
times.
CWR: “This book,”
you write in the introduction, “is intended, in part, as a wake-up call.” What
is the Western world missing? And, more specifically, what are Catholics missing
when it comes to rightly gauging and studying Islam today?
Kilpatrick:
One thing that the West doesn’t grasp is that Islam is a political
religion with political ambitions. Omar Ahmad, the co-founder of the Council on
American Islamic Relations, has said that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to
any other faith but to be dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in
America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” Numerous Islamic
authorities have expressed similar sentiments. The supposedly moderate Imam
Feisal Rauf, the initiator of the Ground Zero mosque project, wrote an article
for the Huffington Post containing the observation, “What Muslims want
is a judiciary (in the US) that ensures that the laws are not in conflict with
the Qur`an and the Hadith.” What he means is that US law must be brought in
line with Islamic sharia law. Since very many provisions of sharia law are
considered criminal under US law, that would mean the overthrow of much of our
legal code.
Many Catholics also fail
to realize the political nature of Islam and imagine that a mosque, like a
church, is simply a place of worship. But a mosque is more than that. Political
and community issues are dealt with in a mosque, and calls to jihad are
frequently issued in mosques. For example, many of the “Arab Spring”
demonstrations were set in motion from mosques following the Friday sermons.
Moreover, there are many instances of mosques being used for mentoring
terrorists or for storing arms and explosives. According to a popular Muslim
poem:
The mosques are our barracks,
the domes our helmets
the minarets our bayonets
And the faithful our soldiers
Many Muslims think of
Islam not only as a religion but also as an army—an army with a mission of
subjugation. That’s why the penalty for apostasy is death. Just as a deserter
from an army in time of war may be punished with the death penalty, so also a
deserter from the army of Islam.
The political nature of
Islam ought to give pause to Catholics who think they can dialogue with Muslims
in the same way they dialogue with Baptists or Jews. A recently concluded series
of Catholic-Muslim dialogues sponsored by the USCCB highlights the problem. It
turns out that the bishops’ dialogue partners are all members of Muslim activist
groups with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the counterparts, Sayyid
Syeed, is a prominent figure in the Islamic Society of North America—a group
that was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive terrorist
funding scheme. One wonders if the bishops fully understand who they are dealing
with.
CWR: How has
Islam, worldwide, changed since the mid-20th century?
Kilpatrick:
It’s changed for the worse. The Muslim world was far more moderate in
the mid-20th century than it is now. That’s in large part because secular
strongmen in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and elsewhere acted as a restraining
force on the more extreme manifestations of Islam. But as these rulers were
swept aside, often with the help of the West, traditional Islam was able to
assert itself, and traditional Islam is, in many senses, more oppressive and
dictatorial than the dictators it replaced. Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, for example,
were far more Westernized and secularized than they are now. Young women didn’t
wear hijabs or ankle-length chadors, and as Ali Allawi—a former Iraqi
cabinet minister—writes, “Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by
their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.”
Allawi observes of Iraq in the 1950s: “It appeared to be only a matter of time
before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world.” The
recent revival of traditional, militant Islam is, in many respects, a reaction
to that loss of faith. The new breed of Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood
preachers are intent on recalling Muslims to the full practice of their
faith—including the “forgotten obligation” of jihad.
CWR: Why is it
that so many secularists attack and mock Christianity but treat Islam with a
strangely milquetoast sort of respect? How much of this is rooted in a flawed
multiculturalism?
Kilpatrick:
The attacks on Christianity are not rooted in a flaw in
multiculturalism, but rather in the nature of multiculturalism. The
multicultural creed is based on the fiction that all cultures, religions, and
traditions are roughly equal. But there is no equivalence between the
achievements of Western Christian civilization and Islamic civilization. In
order to equalize them it’s necessary to pull down Christianity and the West
while applying affirmative action whitewash to Islam. This, of course, leads to
any number of bizarre double standards. For example, Mayor Tom Menino of Boston
stated that the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain was not welcome in Boston because
its president does not approve of gay marriage, while the same Mayor Menino has
been very welcoming to Islamic groups that, in addition to wanting to abolish
gay marriage, also want to abolish gays. Mayor Menino gave a speech at the
ribbon-cutting ceremony of a very large mosque built by the Islamic Society of
Boston. Not only that, he donated a $1.8 million parcel of municipal land to the
project. One of the seven trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston is the
world-renowned Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who believes that gays should either be
burned to death or thrown from a high place. So, in Boston, what’s sauce for the
goose is not necessarily sauce for the chicken fillet.
A more ominous
development is that there now exists a tacit alliance between radical
secularists and radical Islam. The most obvious example of this is the alliance
between Islamic Iran and leftist Venezuela, but there are many other examples.
Leftist professors regularly work with members of the Muslim Student Association
(a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot) toward furthering Islamic goals. The campaign
against the supposed hate crime of Islamophobia has been largely engineered by
the left. And the leftist Justice Department has done its best to undercut the
ability of law enforcement to investigate terrorist activities. Muslims, for
their part, quickly learned to employ the methods pioneered by secular
militants. Muslim activists groups portrayed themselves as civil rights groups
and labeled any resistance to their agenda as hateful, bigoted, racist, and
Islamophobic. At the same time, these Muslim groups can rely on the secular
media to portray them in the best possible light.
CWR: Many parts
of Europe appear to be succumbing, in one way or another, to Islamization. What
about the United States?
Kilpatrick:
The US is on the same river as Europe, but not as close to the falls.
It appears, however, that it’s trying hard to catch up. During the last three
administrations, Muslim activists have worked hard to gain positions of
influence in the government, and with great success. Muslim activist groups
convinced the Department of Homeland Security to delete words like “jihad,”
“Islamist,” and “terrorist” from their lexicon. In compliance with Muslim
demands the Justice Department ordered the military to delete from its training
manuals any suggestion that there is a connection between Islam and violence.
And the State Department played a major role in enabling the Muslim Brotherhood
to come to power in North Africa. Moreover, the State Department has been
working with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for more than a year toward
the goal of establishing anti-blasphemy laws or something akin to them. If the
effort succeeds, criticism of Islam will then be a crime—as it already in many
European countries. Meanwhile, a steady flow of Saudi money helps to ensure that
college students learn only an Islam-friendly version of history and current
events.
At first glance it would
appear that Islamization is unlikely here because the Muslim population is small
and, unlike Europe, America is a churchgoing nation with a healthy birthrate.
But there is still reason for alarm. Although Christianity is in much better
shape in America than in Europe, there has been a significant decline in the
number of those who self-identify as Christians and a significant increase in
the number of atheists, agnostics, and those who identify with no religion.
Moreover, if American Christians haven’t been able to resist the growth of
anti-religious secularism, how likely is it that they will be able to resist the
efforts of dedicated and well-funded cultural jihadists?
In addition, America’s
healthy birthrate is not as healthy as it first appears, because 41 percent of
those births now occur out of wedlock. Fifty-five percent of Hispanic children
are born out of wedlock, as are 72 percent of black children. As they grow
older, children born into unstable families are more likely to see the
structured life of Islam as a solution rather than as a problem.
Islamization is not
simply a numbers game. For an analogy, consider that homosexuals make up only 2
to 3 percent of the population, but have nevertheless exerted an outsize
influence on public policy and school curriculums. Of course, they have been
able to do this with the help of liberal elites in media, academia, the courts,
and the entertainment industry. But remember that Islamic activists have the
backing of the very same people.
Islamization won’t happen
tomorrow in America, but there is a distinct possibility that our children will
grow up in an America dominated by Islam. It’s not necessary to be a majority or
anywhere near a majority in order to dominate. Throughout history Islamic
warriors have managed to subdue populations much larger than their own. If
America is eventually subjugated, however, it won’t be the result of armed
jihad, but of cultural jihad—the steady incremental advance of sharia law
through agitation, propaganda, lawfare, political activism, and infiltration of
key governmental and educational institutions. Many Muslim leaders have made it
plain that they plan to subjugate America under Islam. We should take them
seriously.
CWR: What do you
think of the current approach taken by our government toward Islam in the Middle
East?
Kilpatrick: Our policies have enabled
the creation of a Middle East that is far more radical than it once was. The
media likes to refer to terrorists as “misunderstanders” of Islam, but it is our
government that misunderstands Islam. In failing to understand Islam we have
cooperated in the ascendancy of the most extreme types of Islamists. As a
result, much of the Muslim Middle East is falling into the hands of our enemies.
One of the immediate results has been intensified persecution of Christians. As
bad as they were, the previous secular rulers at least provided some protection
to Christians. Now, Christians are increasingly subject to intimidation,
confiscation of property, forced conversions, rape, mob attacks, and murder.
Another result of our
misguided policies is that Israel is now surrounded by people who seek its
annihilation. Hatred of Jews is deeply rooted in the Koran and in Islamic
tradition. In helping to bring to power those Muslims who adhere most closely to
the Koran, we have put Israel in a precarious position. The new, Muslim
Brotherhood-led government of Egypt has already signaled its intention to break
its peace treaty with Israel. All of this was entirely predictable for anyone
with a basic knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood.
CWR: What must
Christians do to address and cope with the problems presented by the spread of
Islam?
The first thing
Christians need to do is inform themselves about Islam. Christians, like
secularists, tend to view Islam through a multicultural lens and assume that
Islam is like other religions. But it is not. Islam is not a religion of peace,
but a religion of conquest that aims to subjugate non-Muslims. This isn’t just a
theory. Look at every nation where Muslims rule and you will find that
non-Muslims are assigned an inferior status. In studying Islam, Christians will
also find that the Jesus of the Koran is nothing at all like the Jesus of the
Gospels. In fact, he seems to have been introduced into the Koran for the sole
purpose of contradicting the Christian belief in Jesus as the son of God. The
Church also has an obligation to more fully inform Catholics about Islam. The
treatment of the subject in Nostra Aetate and the
Catechism of the Catholic Church are brief and inadequate. Catholics
need to know a great deal more about Islam and have to move beyond the
simplistic assumption that because God and Jesus and Mary are in the Koran,
everything must be okay.
As I said earlier,
Christians must realize that Islam is a political religion, and they need to be
aware that religious overtures on the part of Muslims are often nothing other
than political maneuvering. For example, Christians should avoid being pulled
into Islam’s anti-blasphemy/anti-defamation campaign, because the ultimate goal
of this campaign is to criminalize criticism of Islam. And, by the way, simply
to assert the divinity of Christ is a blasphemy of the highest order according
to the Koran.
Likewise,
Christians should be careful about aligning themselves with Islamic activist
groups on religious freedom issues. When Muslim leaders talk about freedom of
religion, they mean freedom to practice sharia—a legal, social, political, and
theological system that is inimical both to Christianity and the First
Amendment. Muslim spokesmen are quite willing to affirm their belief in
religious freedom because according to Islamic tradition there is only one
religion—Islam. Under Islamic law, all other religions are considered abrogated.
In Muslim countries, religious freedom for non-Muslims is either non-existent or
greatly restricted. Christians who are tempted to partner with Muslims in the
cause of religious freedom need to recall Christ’s words about “sheep in the
midst of wolves.”
