Profits for "the Prophet's" Followers: Where Does It Come From?

Since Muhammad, orthodox Muslims have found methods to simultaneously weaken non-Muslims while strengthening Islam. Muhammad raided the caravans of his enemies, for example, which materially supported his army while impoverishing Islam's enemies.

With the establishment of the jizya — the tax Christians and Jews must pay in Muslim countries — the power of the Muslim state increases while simultaneously weakening competing ideologies.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are following Muhammad's example. The organizations and their operations are funded in two ways. One is by growing opium and selling it to the infidels, which of course, is a way to simultaneously strengthen their cause and weaken their enemies. The answer to this is to not buy their drugs, of course. And try to prevent it from being imported into our country. And to do whatever we can to stop funding the forces working against us.

The second way Al Qaeda and the Taliban are funded is with Saudi oil money, a source of money that also supports the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Students Association, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (the OIC, the largest voting bloc in the U.N. and the largest international organization outside the U.N.).

Saudi Arabia is the most influential member of the illegal price fixing cartel, OPEC, and Saudi Arabia insists on keeping the world price of oil high — simultaneously strengthening orthodox Islam and weakening non-Muslims globally. Iran is also an influential member of OPEC. Iranian oil money funds their nuclear program, and financially supports Hezbollah and Hamas.

In other words, OPEC keeps the world price of oil high, which simultaneously strengthens their cause and weakens their enemies. The answer to this is to not buy their oil, of course. And try to prevent it from being imported into our country. And to do whatever we can to stop funding the forces working against us.

But there's a catch. We produce oil ourselves. Many people believe the answer is to keep using oil but avoid importing any. But whether we import OPEC oil or drill it at home, the world's oil price remains the same because OPEC produces such a large percentage of the world's oil supply that they can dictate the price. And if we don't import it, other infidels will, and at OPEC's inflated price. So the third jihad retains its funding whether we abstain from importing oil or not. In fact, even if we import none of their oil, we still import their price because our own oil producers sell it to us at the world oil price, not some specially discounted price for their fellow citizens.

But if we could drill enough, couldn't we lower the world's oil price? Yes, if we could drill the equivalent of what all twelve OPEC nations produce, we might do it. But the oil produced in infidel nations is more expensive to produce, so if our domestic oil producers drilled enough oil to drop the global price, it would likely stop being profitable for most of them. Saudi Arabia has the advantage because theirs is the cheapest-to-produce oil in the world.

So they have us over a barrel. But only as long as oil retains its monopoly. As soon as the fuel market has competition, the monopoly will be broken, fuel prices will drop drastically, new businesses will boom in our country because the new competing fuels will be produced domestically, and the regimes running the OPEC nations will collapse because they won't be able to sustain their spending. Funds now promoting jihad around the world will dry up. And the economies of the free world will thrive.

This is entirely possible. And this year we could see the oil monopoly go the way of AT&T's long-distance monopoly. Two developments in the United States show a great deal of promise: The Fuel Freedom Foundation will be initiating several pilot projects in U.S. cities in 2014, and a bill has already been introduced into the U.S. Congress that would instantly create fuel competition in America. It's called the Open Fuel Standard Act and several powerful organizations have endorsed it, including ACT for America and the U.S. Energy Security Council.

The end of oil's monopoly is the most effective way to end the third jihad. Breaking oil's monopoly on transportation would simultaneously weaken the global jihad and strengthen non-Muslim nations around the world. Please throw your weight behind this movement and help your fellow non-Muslims see the wisdom and urgency in opening transportation fuel to a free market. The way to win this war is to concentrate our forces at the decisive point. Oil's monopoly is the decisive point.

The Search For The Moderate Muslim

This may be one of the most difficult issues to deal with for those of us who are working to defeat the third jihad: What about the moderate Muslims? Is there such a thing? What does "moderate" mean?

I think what most of us hope it means is "a Muslim that openly and definitely repudiates the violent, intolerant, supremacist passages in the Koran."

But the more I read about mainstream "moderate" Muslim organizations in America, the more I realize that what I hope "moderate" means and what those "moderate Muslims" mean by the term are entirely different. I am getting the feeling that the term "moderate Muslim" is not only pointless, but misleading — perhaps even deliberately misleading.

We should stop using the term. We should come up with a name for Muslims who straightforwardly reject the violent, intolerant passages in the Koran and openly reject the supremacist ideology strewn throughout Islamic teachings.

In my opinion, someone who does that is not really a Muslim, but maybe they still enjoy praying five times a day and fasting during Ramadan, so they might prefer to call themselves Muslims. Maybe they don't want to be rejected by their community and family. Who am I to tell someone what they call themselves?

On the other hand, we non-Muslims need a term that draws a distinction between the two types of Muslims. One type is dangerous to non-Muslims and one is not. A Muslim may not care about this distinction, but it's pretty important to us non-Muslims.

I heard Walid Phares use the term "democracy-seeking Muslims" and I thought that was pretty good, but it doesn't go far enough. Until a Muslim acknowledges that there are, in fact, calls to violence and intolerance against non-Muslims in their central holy book, and then repudiates those specific Koranic passages, I don't feel that Muslim can be trusted.

I know that would sound terrible to someone who doesn't know anything about Islam. But really, this is a pretty straightforward matter. If you call yourself a Muslim, almost everybody on earth is assuming you think the Koran contains the core teachings you will follow. For us non-Muslims who have read the book, that's a scary thought. For those of you who haven't read it yet, these passages will give you an idea: What the Koran Says About Non-Muslims.

So a firm repudiation of those passages would at least acknowledge that the Muslim knows those passages exist and acknowledges that they should be rejected. I know it is entirely possible someone saying so could be lying, but it would at least be a start.

What should we call Muslims who repudiate intolerant and supremacist Islamic teachings? "Moderate" isn't good enough. How about "Scrubbed Muslims?" "Jihad-rejecting Muslims?" "Freed Muslims?" "Friendly Muslims?" "Non-jihadi Muslims?" "Pluralist Muslims?"

I like "Jihad-rejecting Muslims," or JRMs. As far as non-Muslims are concerned, JRMs are the only ones we should engage in "interfaith dialogs" and the only ones allowed to provide counsel for the FBI and the only ones translating documents for security services.

JRMs are the only Muslims who should be allowed to preach in mosques in free countries or teach in madrassas. This is just simple, reasonable self-preservation. A person who calls himself a Muslim but does not openly reject the killing of non-Muslims for being non-Muslims, and who does not reject the overthrow of legitimate democracies, and who does not reject Shari'a law, should not be allowed into those positions. That should be a no-brainer for any person who cares about their government's survival.

So far there aren't many Muslims who are clearly JRMs. The term "moderate Muslims" lets them off the hook — they don't have to risk rejection by their families or perhaps even risk their lives openly repudiating specific Koranic passages, and non-Muslims are left with no way to tell who is a friend and who is a foe.

The term "moderate Muslim" also allows Muslims to remain "undeclared." They don't have to decide whose side they are on. They can secretly harbor a wish that some day their democratic country will be ruled by Shari'a, that some day Islam will reign supreme over the whole world, and that some day all kafirs will pay the jizya (tax on non-Muslims), and yet they may look in every way like a good citizen, trusted by non-Muslims, allowed into influential positions, etc. But if circumstances permitted, they would work toward their Islamic supremacist fantasy. They can function like a kind of sleeper cell in our midst.

By making our own term and defining it, we can make a clear distinction for ourselves and for Muslims, between who is an enemy and who is a friend.

I don't know if simply rejecting jihad would be even be enough, however. One of the most fundamental principles of Islam is that loyalty to Islam comes before loyalty to anything else, including one's country or even one's family. Wouldn't that be a potential problem if the person is working for the government? But maybe our definition of a JRM could include a repudiation of this Islamic hierarchy of loyalties as well.

Another problem is that it says in the Koran 91 times that a Muslim should use Mohammad as an example to emulate. And Mohammad ordered the torture of people, personally participated in beheading 600 people in one night, ordered and led raids on caravans, captured, owned and had sex with slaves, and spent the last ten years of his life conquering and subjugating people. So the definition of a JRM would also have to include a bold rejection of the idea that Mohammad is someone who should be imitated.

Since the stakes are so high for us non-Muslims (being the target of the violence), and since it is easy enough to find out what it actually says in the Koran (that it's a Muslim's duty to fight against the unbelievers until no god is worshiped in the world but Allah), we would be foolish to cavalierly grant our trust to Muslims until they prove themselves trustworthy.

The onus, the burden of proof, is not on non-Muslims.

Muslims will have to prove themselves trustworthy. This whole thing is difficult for all of us, but this distinction must be made. It's a sane response for non-Muslims to make to this sticky situation.

If any Muslim thinks this is offensive or intolerable or somehow outrageous, I think we have discovered someone who is trying to pretend those dangerous passages are not in their holy book, and that sounds like someone we cannot trust.

But if non-Muslims named and defined who we would be willing to trust, and we did it clearly and defiantly, we might find out how many Muslims are on the side of freedom, equality, and pluralism. What do you think?

Monty Python's Michael Palin Scared to Make Fun of Islam

Comedians in the free world will make fun of anything, right? Well, not quite. The following was originally published on Answering Muslims:

Trey Parker and Matt Stone received death threats after announcing that Muhammad would be appearing on an episode of South Park, so the network scrubbed the episode of anything remotely offensive in order to avoid becoming a target.

The writers for that week's episode of The Simpsons sympathized with Stone and Parker, acknowledging that criticizing Islam is simply too dangerous:

 

Likewise, Penn Jillette (of the comedy duo "Penn and Teller") said that he and Teller won't mock Islam because they "have families."

Now the great Michael Palin is admitting that he's afraid to make fun of Islam.

How long can Western civilization continue to claim, on the one hand, that Islam is no different from other religions, and, on the other hand, that Islam is clearly far more dangerous than other religions?

Daily Mail—During his Monty Python days he poked fun at everyone from the Establishment to Christianity.

But thanks to the threat of ‘heavily armed’ fanatics, Michael Palin has admitted there is one comedy taboo he is too scared to break - Islam.

The 70-year-old said religious sensitivities have increased so much since his comedy days it would now be impossible to make 1979 film Life of Brian - which satirised the life of Jesus - let alone laugh at Muslims.

He said: ‘Religion is more difficult to talk about. I don’t think we could do Life of Brian any more. A parody of Islam would be even harder.

‘We all saw what happened to Salman Rushdie and none of us want to get into all that. It’s a pity but that’s the way it is. There are people out there without a sense of humour and they’re heavily armed.’

In 1989, Mr Rushdie was forced into hiding after the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for him to be killed in revenge for his novel The Satanic Verses. (Continue Reading.)

Of course, comedians and comedy writers aren't the only ones who have admitted their fear of Islam. During a Question and Answer session, textual critic Bart Ehrman said that the reason he doesn't write about the Qur'an the way he writes about the Bible is that he values his life. Watch a short video of Bart Ehrman saying so by clicking here.

Will Muslim organizations like CAIR and ISNA condemn Palin, Ehrman, and others as "Islamophobes" and "bigots" for saying that it's too dangerous to criticize Islam? Or is the silencing of critics precisely the goal of these organizations?

For more on this topic, be sure to watch "Don't Make Fun of Muhammad."