The Dagger of Islam
The Dagger of Islam: This is the title of a book written by John Laffin, an influential political writer and commentator, who traveled widely in the Middle-east and the Islamic world to author some 80 books, many of which are on Islam and Muslims. This book was first published in 1979.
Like Huntington (Clash of Civilizations) and their band of people placed in positions of power, wealth and influence, Laffin is trembling with fear and anxiety in his book. Warnings are issued with the help of quotations. One is from a Sufi:
“We are at war. And our battle has just begun. Our first victory will be one tract of land somewhere in the world that is under the complete rule of Islam…Islam is moving across the earth…Nothing can stop [it] spreading in Europe and America.” (`Abdul Qadir al-Sufi al-Darqawi in Jihad – a Grand Plan, published in Britain by Diwan Press, 1978)
Another is from two of his own tribal leader,
“Islam is once again on the march out of Arabia; it is a Muslim crusade, a religious and cultural jihad or holy war…Who knows what djinna has let loose upon the world.” (Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Sunday Telegraph, London, March 25, 1979)
The book has a dozen of such predictions and warnings by Muslim (taken out of context) and by non-Muslim (very much in context), writers, thinkers, and political pundits that can give jaundice to many a Western reader. The trembling then is understandable.
Like Huntington, too, and many political thinkers, Laffin and others are pleading for a plan of action – meaning: a plan of war. “Strike,” as if they are saying to their leaders, “before the new force strikes. Destroy, before the Islamic revival destroys you.”
Laffin further quotes:
“As a creed with which Europe and America has to do business, Islam has begun to make Marxism look decidedly familiar and manageable… It presents itself as a powerful third force in international affairs.” (Guardian Weekly, Editorial, London, April 14, 1979)
And,
“A wave of religious fanaticism is sweeping the Arab world – indeed the whole Muslim world – and the consequences could be revolutionary.” (Editorial in To the Point International, Antwerp, November 14, 1977)
The message and warnings were well-received. Preparations began. Saddam was encouraged to invade Kuwait. The pretext came like Newton’s legendary apple, dropping down real into the Senate and Parliamentary baskets. Iraq was struck, Kuwait was saved, a couple of billions collected!
And, with the foothold obtained, thirteen years of bombing was let loose on Iraq, until Baghdad women were washing pots in Euphrates, until they were sure, there wouldn’t be any serious resistance when their mighty and the bravest ever forces set in foot.
But the pretext of chemical weapons wasn’t working out well enough. Further, the new age was predicting massive changes at the social, economic and political level in the West. Democracy was too good as a pretext, too good for others, but at home, some ugly realities were surfacing. People’s power had to be curbed, they had to be kept on war footing; they must look outside for the troubles inside, a permanent enemy was needed.
Islam and Muslims was the answer. And terrorism was the immediate enemy. To deal with this new enemy, they needed to terrorize their own masses: terrorize them into submission, bring the military into the streets, create a police state within the democratic state. It was like a naughty child at home. He had to be disciplined: They said, “The ghost is right there under the dark canopy. He will snatch you away.”
Terrorism was the dark enemy under the canopy.
Another plan of action was brought in. If you sent an aircraft into a high building, built entirely with wooden planks, bolts and nuts, you cannot make it collapse by striking at the top. You must strike at bottom to make it collapse. If it collapses, like a house of cards, storey after storey, in a couple of seconds, great forces must be set at work. No wonder workers heard “boom,” “boom,” “boom,” before every storey’s fall.
That done, the theater of action was shifted. There, resistance killed, imprisoned, placed out of action, the brave forces went in to transfer power to the dark forces within Islam’s house; those who believe in destruction, without following up with construction, those who lament, without ever smiling and letting the mainstream smile, who preach, without ever converting, who divide, without leaving any room for rapprochement – for, they know – you can’t go back in time to re-enact historical events.
Like Israel: a dagger in the heart – bleed and die, or submit. It was a dagger, but not the dagger of Islam. The Founding Fathers rest in the grave in peace, at last; or, is there going to be more of peace and security for those who laid down their arms and sued for peace 200 years ago, for those in the grave, for those being brought closer to their graves! Most probably no. Human blood is like nicotine. Given a little, the demand grows.
Unexpectedly, the dagger has become an arrow that pierces the hearts and, as the Roman Emperor Heraclius remarked addressing Abu Sufyan in the seventh century: “True faith is something that, when it has pierced a heart, cannot be forced out.”
The fears of men like John Laffin and a million others were not ill-founded. The Devil had directly planted those fears and apprehensions in their hearts and minds; otherwise, they could not have imagined the future so accurately. Who could have told them a quarter century ago that Islam will start to capture the hearts of their common folk?
Twenty-five percent population of Hague, the Capital of European Union, is Muslim. Most street hawkers in distant and cold countries – e.g. Holland – are Muslim. Popular cafeterias in Britain have white customers flocking in from distant neighborhoods. That is a country in which seven Mayors are Muslim, including that of London. When thousands of young boys and girls were looting in London – for hours – not a single Hijabi could be spotted.
A young girl asks her mother, “Mom. Can you buy me a Hijabi dress?” The mother in shock reacts, “What?” “Mom, you know, you look so beautiful in Hijab.”
A boy turns up home late after evening games. “Where have you been?” asks the mother sternly.
“Well, I was in the mosque with my pals learning the Qur’an.”
The mother reacts, “O my God! What’s wrong with you? Come on, boy! Tell me what have you learned?”
“Not much, Mom. Just a few verses.”
“Verses of the Koran!” she is almost screaming. “Tell me what they are.”
The boy reads out, “All praise for God, Lord of the worlds, the Compassionate, the Merciful; the Owner of the Day of Reckoning. You do we worship, and Your help do we seek.”
The mother is as out of breath as the boy is. Her jaws are clamped hard upon each other, as she is wondering whether time has come to move away from this Paki-infested locality.
Muslims have come, and, without slogans, without demonstrations, and without noise, Islam has begun to play its role. The Jews have been in the West for last 2000 years. Besides Banks and as billionaires, what else have they given the society? Yes. Hollywood, but, otherwise, as little as none to be remembered for. Muslims are there perhaps for half a century; and we hear Angela Merkel saying: Islam is German!
When a Mayor was asked the reason for rejecting license to a Filfilah outlet in the United States, he replied: “Today Filfilah, tomorrow Shawarma, day after tomorrow the Qur’an. No sir, I will have none of it.”
The Filfilah and Shawarma outlets may, or may not, be there. But day after tomorrow, the Qur’an will be there.
The Mayors, Huntingtons, Laffins and their kind may be asked, “What have you given your masses? Nudity, child murderers, gay, lesbians, dangerous criminals, school shooters, porn-filled media, male and female prostitutes, pimps, drugs, homicides, drunkards, gamblers, mass-shooters, daily obliterates of innocent lives in distant lands, psychic patients and the homeless in millions?”
You name a degradation, and look into your glorious culture for its definition. What is your legacy: crime-infested streets and neighborhoods, parks and churches? The able-bodied, proud, hardworking honest folks suffering in humility for food stamps?
Worst of all – you have taken away your people’s hope. The hope that this life, this society, this world, will ever be better, will ever stop torturing them. A fair-skinned, fair-looking, blond girl is asked: “Why? Why at all did you have to become a Muslim?” She is in tears. “Look!” She says, “I had to choose between suicide and Islam.”
Why are you angry and frustrated if a man rejected by you for his skin-color leaves you and goes into the mosque to lead in the Prayers?
It’s not the dagger. Your dishonesty is despite your assumed objectivity in writings. You know it’s the arrow – the arrow of Islam – that frets you. Or rather, not an arrow. It’s showers of mercy right from He in the heavens. You might pay attention to His voice:
“Nay, We generously provided these people and their forefathers, until a great length of time passed over them. Do they not notice that We set upon the land, decreasing it at its borders? Then, is it they who will prevail?” (The Qur’an, 21:44)
