By Paul Eidelberg

If the essence of religion is a commitment to altruism, and if altruism is rooted in the concept of man’s creation in the image of God, then Islam is not a religion but a perversion of religion, as well as a denial of the moral unity of the humanity. Islam should therefore be regarded as paganism with the veneer of monotheism.  The mere fact that Muslims use children as human bombs or as human shields, thus sacrificing their own children in the name of Allah, is comparable to Canaanites who sacrificed their children to Baal.

It follows that the language of contemporary public discourse errs most seriously when it identifies Islam as a religion.  As others have observed, Islam is a political ideology. Thus understood, we should regard the leaders of this ideology, such as the Mullahs of Iran and the leaders of more than fifty Muslim states, as despots engaged in a monumental deception if not in willful self-delusion. These Muslims use the language and accouterments of religion to (1) garner respectability; (2) augment their power; (3) recruit the ignorant; and (4) fill their coffers.

Moreover, by wearing the mantle of religion, these despots disarm non-Muslims, especially western liberals steeped in skepticism and moral pluralism, who are reluctant to expose Islam as a fraud lest they be accused of bigotry, the pejorative label of the secular mind.

The above criticism is not ethnocentric. The falsity and pernicious character of Islam  –  and let us not be misled by nice Muslim acquaintances – can be substantiated by citing  the views of the great Arab philosopher al-Farabi on the one hand, and the renowned sociologist Ibn Khaldun on the other. Both of these scholars rejected Islam with contempt. While al-Farabi deemed Islam irrational, Ibn Khaldun regarded Islam as “savagery.” Sadly, were it not for the existential threat Islam poses to Civilization, the preceding disparagement of Islam is unfortunate, for this psychotic and ferocious “religion” has endowed a billion and more worshipers of Allah with some “meaning” to their otherwise ferocious and meaningless lives. At stake in this candid assessment is the survival of civilization.

As Lou Harris has observed, civilization possesses four prerequisites: a stable social order, the co-operation of individuals pursuing their own interests, the ability to tolerate or socialize with one’s neighbors, and a hatred of violence.  Clearly, Islam lacks these prerequisites of civilization. Hence it is all the more remarkable that Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist, now living in the United States, arrived at the unpleasant conclusion that Islam is not a civilization!

We dare not remain silent about these ugly facts. We dare not be silent today as the world was silent in the 1930s about Nazism and its ascendency in Germany, whose imperialistic ambitions are comparable to those of Islam. For today Islam has access to weapons of mass destruction. We dare not distract ourselves by playing golf while Iran, the spearhead of Islam, is animated by the malediction “Death to America,” and vows to “Wipe Israel off the map.”  That so-called moderate Muslims don’t rise against this scourge of humanity is a commentary on its character.

The threat posed by Nazi Germany could have been nipped in the bud years before it invaded and conquered Belgium and France, to say nothing of the Nazi the death camps of which democracies, steeped in moral relativism, were silent. Today this relativism is ensconced not only in academia, but in the American White House! Today, while Islam is animated by a militant and fraudulent religion, America is steeped in “evangelical atheism.”◙

Epilogue. I hope to offer soon a positive message. But bear in that a rotting foundation must be removed before constructing a sound edifice.