Dr Anjuli Pandavar is a British writer and social critic who holds a PhD in political economy. She was born into a Muslim family in apartheid South Africa, where she left Islam in 1979. Anjuli is preparing to convert to Judaism. She is one of the staunchest defenders of Israel and a constructive critic of the Jewish state when she believes it is warranted. She owns and writes on https://murtaddtohuman.substack.com/, where she may be contacted.
This concise summary cuts through the comforting, self-serving and ultimately suicidal fictions of “moderate Muslims", “Islamism", “Jihadism", “political Islam", “Islamic reform", and the like. It could be titled "why Islamophobia is not a bad idea..."
It helps to think of Islam not as a religion, but as a political economy and totalitarian social order with religion as a front organisation, which, in fact, it is. Islam emerged out of Arab nomadic barbarism as the perfect social order for a nomadic barbarian society to secure advantage over, and ultimately dominate, other societies. It was eagerly taken up by other nomadic barbarian peoples, such as the Turkic tribes and the Mongols, because, as a highly-organised plunder economy (jihad, plunder and jizya) Islam offered a more efficient way for a barbarian society to acquire and secure wealth.
The nomadic barbarian Arabs had practised raiding and plunder for at least 500 years before they rebranded themselves as Muslims. As early as the 3rd century CE, they were the scourge of the Romans, the Persians, the Jews, the Christians and all settled peoples in the Fertile Crescent. The erroneously named "Muslim conquests" was a barbarian Arab expansion, part of the great historic migrations of nomadic barbarian peoples, effectively chain-plundering their way from settlement to settlement. Such were the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns, the Turkic tribes, the Mongols and, of course, the Arabs.
The Romans erected extensive frontier defences against the Arabs in Syria, as did the Persians in the Gulf. The Arabs’ early conquests had taken place before they consolidated their conquered territories and peoples into a unified empire. The consolidation process, around 800CE-1300CE, was orchestrated from Baghdad, then part of Persia.
Islam, invented on the fly as the conquests proceeded apace, reflects this instability. Each stage in Islam’s development found the empire’s frontiers much further out and enclosing many more and vastly different peoples. The rigidity, absolute obedience and brutal enforcement needed to hold such an empire together and focussed on a single purpose, was a scale-up of the barbarism the Arabs brought with them out of Arabia.
Islam is what it is because Muslims have to conquer the world. If this process is interrupted, i.e., Islam without jihad, then their society immediately sinks into poverty and degradation. Apart from the impossibility of Islamic reform, it is not clear why anyone would hanker after it, as opposed to simply wanting rid of it all. No one ever wished for Nazi reform.
When the Arabs burst forth from the deserts of Arabia, their leaders were either pagans or syncretic pagan-Christians (the Dome of the Rock is a syncretic pagan-Christian temple/church). By the time the Arabs needed a consolidating religion, they first tried to piggy-back on Judaism. The Jews, sensibly, would have none of it. So the Arabs cobbled a religion together out of those around them, mostly Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Arab paganism, assumed the name Muslims, and sanctified their plunder and brutality as Islam.
The purpose of the Arabs’ new religion was not conversion per se, but to advance their political economy, which was plunder. Jihad was both a raid for loot, and a recruitment drive for their jihad armies. Join us in raiding and get a share of the spoils, or die. Islam, the front, was developed as an actual religion integral to plundering, thus sanctifying lying, stealing, raping and killing as acts of worship. Shari’a is the totalitarian glue holding it all together. Leaving Islam is, therefore, not only treason, but desertion.
The mastermind behind all this was Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, whom evidence points to as the earliest architect of Islam. He assembled a team of mainly conquered Persians around him, compiled the Qur’an, invented Muhammad and wrote the hadith all at the same time. Their successors spent a few centuries trying to make it all coherent and consistent. The only benchmark they had to hit was barbarism. Consequently, each advance of civilisation rendered Islam more untenable. Being anti-civilisation is thus an existential necessity for Islam.
From around 1000CE, Hajjaj’s successors started codifying Shari’a. Through jihad of the tongue, da’wah, Shari'a turns every single Muslim, without exception, whether they are aware of it or not, into a propagandist. This is just one of the many ingenious innovations in Hajjaj's legacy. Another, one of the most ingeniously evil, is the communal obligation.
Islam’s architects quickly realised that there is no point in making someone die for Allah, if they are completely useless at killing. Henceforth, if they wanted to please Allah and earn his favour, they could do so by easing the burden on the killers, e.g., provide them with concealment, a bed, food, fresh steeds, information, etc. But since they hate killing, the likelihood was they would simply neglect these duties, even sabotage the missions.
The communal obligation, designed to prevent this, is obligatory on a Muslim community as a whole. As long as some performed this obligation, everyone has performed the obligation. But if no one performs the obligation, then everyone has sinned. Thus it is in the interest of every Muslim to ensure that the obligation is fulfilled. Jihad, killing and being killed in the cause of Allah, is a communal obligation.
The Qur’an describes Muslims who kill and die for Allah as, “those who give their wealth and their blood" (our “extremists", “radicals", “jihadists", “Islamists", etc.). The timid Muslims whose role it is to assist the killers, are “those who sit still" (our “moderate Muslims", “peaceful Muslims" or simply “Muslims," in contradistinction to “Islamists"). The most peaceful Muslim has a role in jihad and will fulfil it, so the killing can be done.
It is nonsensical to say that Muslims can practise their religion in your country, but without Shari’a. If a Muslim is able to practice just one thing of Islam in your country, you have Shari’a. And Shari’a stipulates that if a Muslim is able to practise anything of Islam in an “enemy" country, then he must behave as if he is in a Muslim country.
Conversely, if a Muslim is prevented from practising anything of Islam in an “enemy" country, then he must leave that country. Denying Islam to Muslims is the only way to rid your country of Shari’a.