What "Dawa" Is And Why It's A Bigger Threat Than Islamic Terrorism
Niall Ferguson writes about the brutal attack by Muslim convert Khalid Masood on people guilty only of walking across a bridget in London.
In it, he rightly calls Dawa "The Islamist mind poison that turns lost souls into 'lone wolves.'" He also writes about this Islamic proseletizing:
As my wife, Ms Ayaan Hirsi Ali, argues in a powerful new report, jihad is always preceded by dawa - the process of non-violent but toxic radicalisation that transforms the petty criminal into a zealot.
At the WSJ, Tunku Varadarajan interviews Somali-born Islamic apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who just published a new book, "The Challenge of Dawa."
Dawa "describes the ceaseless, world-wide ideological campaign waged by Islamists as a complement to jihad," explains Varadarajan, per Hirsi Ali:
Ms. Hirsi Ali has come a long way from the days when she--"then a bit of a hothead"--declared Islam to be incapable of reform, while also calling on Muslims to convert or abandon religion altogether. That was a contentious decade ago. Today she believes that Islam can indeed be reformed, that it must be reformed, and that it can be reformed only by Muslims themselves--by those whom she calls "Mecca Muslims." These are the faithful who prefer the gentler version of Islam that she says was "originally promoted by Muhammad" before 622. That was the year he migrated to Medina and the religion took a militant and unlovely ideological turn.At the same time, Ms. Hirsi Ali--now a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, where I also work--is urging the West to look at Islam with new eyes. She says it must be viewed "not just as a religion, but also as a political ideology." To regard Islam merely as a faith, "as we would Christianity or Buddhism, is to run the risk of ignoring dawa, the activities carried out by Islamists to keep Muslims energized by a campaign to impose Shariah law on all societies--including countries of the West."
Dawa, Ms. Hirsi Ali explains, is "conducted right under our noses in Europe, and in America. It aims to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and also to push existing Muslims in a more extreme direction." The ultimate goal is "to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with Shariah." It is a "never-ending process," she says, and then checks herself: "It ends when an Islamic utopia is achieved. Shariah everywhere!"
Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the West has made a colossal mistake by its obsession with "terror" in the years since 9/11. "In focusing only on acts of violence," she says, "we've ignored the Islamist ideology underlying those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam--or 'Islamism'--and against those who spread that ideology in our midst, we've committed a blunder."
She talks about how we can't allow the Islamic imperialist aims to be pursued "unchecked":
America needs to be on full alert against political Islam because "its program is fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution"--with religious pluralism, the equality of men and women, and other fundamental rights, including the toleration of different sexual orientations. "When we say the Islamists are homophobic," she observes, "we don't mean that they don't like gay marriage. We mean that they want gays put to death."Islam the religion, in Ms. Hirsi Ali's view, is a Trojan horse that conceals Islamism the political movement. Since dawa is, ostensibly, a religious missionary activity, its proponents "enjoy a much greater protection by the law in free societies than Marxists or fascists did in the past." Ms. Hirsi Ali is not afraid to call these groups out. Her book names five including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asserts--and in turn receives in the mainstream media--the status of a moderate Muslim organization. But groups like CAIR, Ms. Hirsi Ali says, "take advantage of the focus on 'inclusiveness' by progressive political bodies in democratic societies, and then force these societies to bow to Islamist demands in the name of peaceful coexistence."
Consider that Hirsi Ali must go around with bodyguards everywhere, due to the Islamic fatwas -- calling for her death. This is not happening in some Bedouin tent city; it's now a facet of Western society, thanks to the commands in Islam to slaughter apostates and critics of Islam.
More on Dawa from her here:
Dawa as practiced by radical Islamists employs a wide range of mechanisms to advance their goal of imposing Islamic law (sharia) on society. This includes proselytizing but extends beyond that. In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to instill Islamist views in existing Muslims.5 The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with the rule of sharia law.Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the "long march through the institutions" was to twentieth-century Marxists. It is subversion from within--the abuse of religious freedom in order to undermine that very freedom. Another analogy is also possible. After Islamists gain power, dawa is to them what Gleichschaltung (synchronization) of all aspects of German state, civil, and social institutions was to the National Socialists.
There are of course differences. The biggest difference is that dawa is rooted in the Islamic practice of attempting to convert non-Muslims to accept the message of Islam. As it is an ostensibly religious missionary activity, proponents of dawa enjoy a much greater protection by the law in free societies than Marxists or fascists did in the past.
Worse, Islamist groups have enjoyed not just protection but at times official sponsorship from government agencies duped into regarding them as representatives of "moderate Muslims" simply because they do not engage in violence.
All this means that the new administration urgently needs to devise an anti-dawa counterstrategy that employs the full range of tools at our disposal.
She offers one -- scroll down at the link. (P.S. It's long.)
We do not need to fear "dawa" when Americans are so ignorant that a 90 day restriction tacked onto a multi-year vetting process for parties coming from "countries of concern" determined by Congressional consensus results in riots, screams of "they are coming to take me away" (catcy tune), and law suits.
I'd say the MSM, turning a blind eye to Soros funding, and an inability to logical acknowledge legitimate points are much closer and much more dangerous.
Bob in Texas at April 10, 2017 5:47 AM
Uh-oh. CAIR is not going to be happy about this.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 10, 2017 10:13 AM
"[Dawa] is a "never-ending process," she says, and then checks herself: "It ends when an Islamic utopia is achieved. Shariah everywhere!"
That will never happen. When Islam controls the world, the various sects will be violently fighting each other. Some House of Peace.
Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the West has made a colossal mistake by its obsession with "terror" in the years since 9/11. "In focusing only on acts of violence," she says, "we've ignored the Islamist ideology underlying those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam--or 'Islamism'--and against those who spread that ideology in our midst, we've committed a blunder."
See category error
mpetrie98 at April 10, 2017 11:50 AM
WeshouldworryagreatdealaboutthegrowthofIslamintheWest,becauseDon'tyouunderstand?It'sanIDEOLOGY...,etc.
BythewayI'mnotdoingthisonpurpose...Mykeyboardisfuckedup.Butgiventhetopicandtheunendingpretentiousnessaboutit,Idon'tthinkit'sworthfixingthemachineandretyingthisagain.
Maybeitactuallysavestime.
Crid at April 10, 2017 12:36 PM
See also.
And in other news, this is a brilliant idea.
Crid at April 10, 2017 1:55 PM
Ah.
Crid at April 10, 2017 5:48 PM
I think Hirsi Ali wants to sell more books.
Isab at April 10, 2017 7:49 PM
Leave a comment