Richard Pryor famously said: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?” When we look around, we see bombings and slaughter and beheadings and inappropriate rage from certain people. Then we see certain jive turkeys insisting that what we see before our eyes is not true. Example: CAIR says Jihad is not holy war:

“The proper response to the Pope’s inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam. This unfortunate episode also offers an opportunity for Christians to learn more about Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic concept of jihad.

“Jihad is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense (e.g. — having a standing army for national defense), or fighting against tyranny or oppression. ‘Jihad’ should not be translated as ‘holy war.’” …

And if you believe that baloney, we’ve got two holes in the ground in lower Manhattan we’d like to sell you. But it’s not just CAIR. We have in our country the dunces of dhimmitude at the New York Times, effectively incorporating CAIR’s press releases into their craven editorial line, and also saying that jihad is not holy war:

There is more than enough religious anger in the world. So it is particularly disturbing that Pope Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims, quoting a 14th-century description of Islam as “evil and inhuman.”

In the most provocative part of a speech this week on “faith and reason,” the pontiff recounted a conversation between an “erudite” Byzantine Christian emperor and a “learned” Muslim Persian circa 1391. The pope quoted the emperor saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Muslim leaders the world over have demanded apologies and threatened to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican, warning that the pope’s words dangerously reinforce a false and biased view of Islam. For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence.

But still we see violence, do we not? We see riots and churches bombed (not even Catholic churches!) and other things bombed and calls for beheading the Pope. We see signs among the rioters and the inflamed praising jihad. And in addition to the violence and mayhem, we have writings on jihad that contradict CAIR and the NYT. As an illustration of what the NYT would call a “perversion” of the concept of jihad, we’ll take as a random example Osama bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of jihad against the West. You will please note the multiple appearances of “jihad” below, none of them referencing “spiritual struggle”:

Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders — World Islamic Front Statement
23 February 1998

Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
Ayman al-Zawahiri, amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt
Abu-Yasir Rifa’i Ahmad Taha, Egyptian Islamic Group
Shaykh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan
Fazlur Rahman, amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh…

[U]lema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in “Al- Mughni,” Imam al-Kisa’i in “Al-Bada’i,” al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: “As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.” On that basis, and in compliance with Allah’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…

Here’s our question: which definition of jihad appears to fit the facts as you see them in the news every day? Who are you gonna believe, CAIR and the NYT or your lyin’ eyes?

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 8:17 am and is filed under General, MSM, Religion, War, art, culture, idiots!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.