DHIMMI WATCH: The continued emphasis by Muslim and non-Muslim apologists for Islam on a single verse -- "There is no compulsion in religion" -- is permitted not only because their Infidel audience has no idea either about what is said relevantly elsewhere, in hundreds of places, in the Qur'an and Hadith, and not only because they are unaware of the doctrine of abrogation or "naskh," but because they are also unaware of the precise meaning that is given to that phrase "there is no compulsion in religion" by Muslim jurisconsults. If they did look into it, they would find that the "obvious" meaning of the words -- that is, the meaning that we Infidels choose to endow that phrase with -- is not what Muslim scholars mean at all. They mean that in the end one cannot force deep belief on people, though one can force them to comply outwardly, even on pain of death. And that is what Islam is in the business of doing: forcing outward compliance, on pain of punishment that may well include, has often included, death.
But there is one more thing that should surely be offered as an objection when some fool comes along and utters credulously this "there is no compulsion in religion" and expects us to believe the Western understanding of it. That is the observable behavior of Muslims over 1350 years. What have Muslims done, when they have conquered, by force or otherwise, non-Muslim lands and peoples? They offer three possibilities: death, conversion, and, at least to those who can be classified as ahl al-kitab or "people of the book," permanent status as dhimmis, with a host of political, economic, and social disabilities which together added up to lives of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity, at times relieved -- but only at times -- by the occasional mollitude of a particular Muslim ruler. A slim reed on which to base one's happiness. And so, over time, many non-Muslims, in order to avoid this condition of degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity, converted to Islam. Fitzgerald: There Is No Compulsion in Religion >>> By Hugh Fitzgerald | September 24, 2008
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