Everybody Knows a Friendly Muslim

Most people in the West know, or have known at some point, someone who was raised Muslim. Perhaps they were a foreign exchange student, or a someone in their dorm in college. Or perhaps a college professor, or a co-worker.

If you're like most liberals, you probably have thought about this person as a living rebuttal to charges regarding the danger of the spread of Islam. I know Muslims. They are peaceful normal peaceful who just want to practice their religion. What's wrong with that?

The flaw in this line of reasoning is the belief that Islam, like Christianity, is a religion of individuals. If you are thinking that, you are thinking with the bias of a Westerner.

Islam is not at all a religion of individuals. It is a societal religion, akin to a political ideology. In many ways comparing to Christianity (and other religions) is comparing apples to oranges.

Islam has little meaning practiced in isolation in the Western world. In that situation it is but a set of interesting harmless rituals and holidays. But this is not Islam. It is just the just the solitary practice of a Muslim.

Islam is only truly Islam when it is the majority religion within a community or a nation. It is a set of outward practices in conformity with a societal norm.

Isn't Christianity the same? Well perhaps it can be, but it is not a core tenet of the Christian religion that it must be, or even expects to be, a majority within a society. Christianity can be practiced just as legitimately by solitary individuals, or by a tiny minority within society,  arguably more easily than if it is the majority religion. This is because Christianity concerns the inner being, rather than the outward public practice.

The question to ask in regard to isolated "good Muslims" in the west is: how they behave if they were in a Muslim majority society? In almost every case, a good Muslim will conform to all the beliefs of a Muslim society must be, including the death penalty for apostasy.

One might compare this to the charming hippie "Communist" harmlessly selling fruit at a farmer's market. But how this person be, if dropped down in the middle of crowd in the Cultural Revolution of China? Communism in individuals is meaningless. It only makes sense as a collective ideology. The same is true of Islam.

The Muslims who came to the West fifty years ago were often academics comfortable in a secular world. The ones coming today are a different type of person. They don't want to integrate. They want to immediately be among other Muslims, because for most Muslims to be outside a Muslim community is to be outside of Islam itself. They think the rest of us should ultimately play by their rules as well. They believe we ultimately will play by their rules because God wants that to happen. God will make their communities grow until they can dominate the nations of the West, and we will play by their rules whether we want to or not.