Prompted by other press comments and events. This site has been compiled under Win98/XP with a simple sitebuilder. Any observations from the users of other OS are welcome. That means to ANY of the pages and content. The page below appeared recently on the internet. The majority is unedited. Read and judge for yourselves.   This page PKM Sept. 24th. 2001 Any comments are welcome. Please use the e.mail link on the Feedback page. This may not work with Hotmail or similar accounts, but mouseover the link will show you my e.mail address. If you want anything posting here, send it over or give me the link.

The Middle East.

What does the Archaeology of Jerusalem tell us?

Remember also that Jerusalem was NOT visited by Mohammed and is also NOT mentioned in the Koran. Also NONE of the states in the Middle East existed as such until the "West" drew up the borders last century!

The Fruits of Sunni vs Shia Islam. Senseless!

Comments March 2nd. 2008.
Iraq	The ceasefire continues by Al Sadr has and is producing dividends. Sadly Al Qaeda are persisting in their indiscriminate violence. They are the major factor preventing progress in the country.
Israel / Gaza.	Once again the Hamas "militants" are rocketing Israel with the aim of stopping talks. They hide in civilian areas and then complain when a counter strike hits innocents. The Hamas attitude is the reason why there may be no more progress here. If no rockets are fired, Israel will have nothing to respond to!
Afghanistan.	The idiot "Drudge" has caused yet more trouble. Prince Harry was doing his job, protecting muslims from "fellow extreme muslims". He was not an "Ambassador of War". The Taleban are suggesting more roadside bombs and suicide bombers as "military" action (no matter how many innocents die). As to the Royal Family now being "legitimate targets", according to The exiled Mullah Omar Bakri in Lebanon, well that is frankly ridiculous. Muslim "politics" must STOP using bombs and bullets here and everywhere else.
Conclusions	In all of the above, Muslim extremists are the factor slowing or stopping progress. Western involvement has been intended to curtail this minority action. Where there has been a positive move, as in Iraq, progress is being made, with only the Wahabbist Al Qaeda remaining as a provocateur.

Quotes from the Koran

Quoted from Internet posting Sept 23rd 2001

The majority of this text, unless indicated by a blue starting word was written before the events of September 11th.

Given the stupefying enormity of the acts of barbarism of 11 September, moral outrage is appropriate and justified, as are demands for punishment. But a civilized society cannot permit blind attacks on all those perceived as "Muslims" or Arabs. Not all Muslims or all Arabs are terrorists. Nor are they implicated in the horrendous events of Tuesday. Police protection for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions must be increased. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Usama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. The West needs to understand them in order to be able to deal with them and avoid past mistakes. We are confronted with Islamic terrorists and must take seriously the Islamic component. Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, do not understand the passionate, religious, and anti-western convictions of Islamic terrorists. These God-intoxicated fanatics blindly throw away their lives in return for the Paradise of Seventy Two Virgins offered Muslim martyrs killed in the Holy War against all infidels.

Jihad is "a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of the Prophet Muhammad [the Prophet]. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur'an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims"[1].

The world is divided into two spheres, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. The latter, the Land of Warfare, is a country belonging to infidels which has not been subdued by Islam. The Dar al-Harb becomes the Dar-al Islam, the Land of Islam, upon the promulgation of the edicts of Islam. Thus the totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth: there is no possibility of salvation outside it. Muslims must fight and kill in the name of Allah.

We read (IX. 5-6):"Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them"; IV.76: "Those who believe fight in the cause of God"; VIII.39-42: "Say to the Infidels: if they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's." Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be amply rewarded in the life to come: IV.74: "Let those who fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward."

What should we make with these further unfortunate verses from the Qur'an: Bear in mind the context in which each quote appears. It is possible that some were written in a historical context, whether accurate or not, and are perhaps not really intended to be applied in the general sense. As always, interpretation is critical! *Torment to Non-believers->IV.56 *Only Islam Acceptable-> III.85 * No friends from outsiders->III.118 *No friends with Jews, christians->V. 51 * No friends with non believers->IV.144, III.28 * No friends with parents/siblings if not believers->IX.23 * Fight non-believers->IX.123 * Kill non-believers->IV.89 *Anti Jewish verses->V.82 * God a "plotter"->VIII.30 *Killing Idolators->IX.5 * Idolators are unclean just because they are idolator->IX.28 * Forcing non-believers to pay tax->IX.29 * The Torment of Hell->XLIV.43-58 * All except Muslims/Jews/Christians/Sabeans will go to hell->II.62, V.69 * Cast terror in the hearts, smite the neck and cut fingertips of unbelievers->VIII.12 * Smite the neck of unbelievers->XLVII.4 * Severe Punishment for atheists->X.4 ; V.10 ; V.86 * Severe Punishment for non-believers->XXII.19-22 ; LXXII.23, XCVIII.6 *Punishing non-believers of Hereafter->XVII.10 * Punishing for rejecting faith->III.91 * Non believers go to hell->IV.140 ; VII.36 * Partial Believers go to hell too->IV.150-1 * Sadistic punishments->LVI.42-43 * Punishment for apostates->XVI.106 ; III.86-88 ; III.90 ; IV.137. * Threat of punishement for not going to war->IX.38-39, XLVIII.16  *God making someone more sinful so he can be punished more->III178 *Intentionally preventing unbelievers from knowing the truth->VI.25 ; VI.110 * Intentionally preventing unbelievers from Understanding Quran->XVII.45-46 * It is God who causes people to err and He punishes them for that->XVII.97 * God could guide, if he chose to, but did not->VI.35 * Intentionally misguiding those whom he pleases to->XIV.4 * Willfully misguiding some->XVI.93 * God causes human to err->IV.143 ; VII.178 * God deceiving humans->IV.142

It is surely time for us who live in the West and enjoy freedom of expression to examine unflinchingly and unapologetically the tenets of these fanatics, including the Qur'an which divinely sanctions violence. We should unapologetically examine the life of the Prophet, who was not above political assassinations, and who was responsible for the massacre of the Jews.

"Ah, but you are confusing Islam with Islamic fundamentalism. The Real Islam has nothing to do with violence," apologists of Islam argue.

There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism: at most there is a difference of degree but not of kind. All the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism are derived from the Qur'an, the Sunna, and the Hadith - Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian construct derived by Muslim jurists from the fundamental and defining texts of Islam.The fundamentalists, with greater logic and coherence than so-called moderate or liberal Muslims, have made Islam the basis of a radical utopian ideology that aims to replace capitalism and democracy as the reigning world system. Islamism accounts for the anti-American hatred to be found in places far from the Arab-Israeli conflict, like Nigeria and Afghanistan, demonstrating that the Middle East conflict cannot legitimately be used to explain this phenomenon called Islamism. A Palestinian involved in the WTC bombings would be seen as a martyr to the Palestinian cause, but even more as a martyr to Islam.

"Ah, but Islamic fundamentalism is like any other kind of fundamentalism, one must not demonise it. It is the result of political, social grievances. It must be explained in terms of economics and not religion," continue the apologists of Islam.

There are enormous differences between Islamic fundamentalism and any other kind of modern fundamentalism. It is true that Hindu, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists have been responsible for acts of violence, but these have been confined to particular countries and regions. Islamic fundamentalism has global aspirations: the submission of the entire world to the all-embracing Shari'a, Islamic Law, a fascist system of dictates designed to control every single act of all individuals. Nor do Hindus or Jews seek to convert the world to their religion. Christians do indulge in proselytism but no longer use acts of violence or international terrorism to achieve their aims.  Only Islam treats non-believers as inferior beings who are expendable in the drive to world hegemony. Islam justifies any means to achieve the end of establishing an Islamic world.  Islamic fundamentalists recruit among Muslim populations, they appeal to Islamic religious symbols, and they motivate their recruits with Islamic doctrine derived from the Qur'an. Economic poverty alone cannot explain the phenomenon of Islamism. Poverty in Brazil or Mexico has not resulted in Christian fundamentalist acts of international terror. Islamists are against what they see as western materialism itself. Their choice is clear: Islam or jahiliyya. The latter term is redefined to mean modern-style jahiliyya of modern, democratic, industrialised societies of Europe and America, where man is under the dominion of man rather than Allah. They totally reject the values of the West, which they feel are poisoning Islamic culture. So, it is not just a question of economics, but of an entirely different worldview, which they wish to impose on the whole world. Sayyid Qutb, the very influential Egyptian Muslim thinker, said that "dominion should be reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He conferred upon men. An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so that this moral rearmament could take place. The ultimate objective is to re-establish the Kingdom of Allah upon earth..."[2] [1] T.Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, entry "Jihad" [2] E.Sivan, Radical Islam, New haven, 1985, p.25. It is surely time for moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted. I should like to see them do three things:

1. All moderate Muslims should unequivocally denounce this barbarism, should condemn it for what it is: the butchery of innocent people,

2. All moderate Muslim citizens of the United States should proclaim their Americanness, their patriotism, and their solidarity with the families of the victims. They should show their pride in their country by giving blood and other aid to victims and their families.

3. All moderate Muslims should take this opportunity to examine the tenets of their faith; should look at the Qur'an, recognize its role in the instigation of religious violence, and see it for what it is, a problematical human document reflecting 7th or perhaps 8th Century values which the West has largely outgrown.

While it should not be too difficult for moderate Muslims to accept the need to denounce the violence of Terrorist Tuesday, I am not at all optimistic about their courage or willingness to proclaim their love for their chosen country, the USA, or examine the Qur'an critically.

Too many Muslims are taught from an early age that their first allegiance is to Islam. They are exhorted in sermons in mosques, and in books by such Muslim intellectuals as Dr Siddiqui of the Muslim Institute in London, that if the laws of the land conflict with any of the tenets of Islam, then they must break the laws ofthe infidels, and only follow the Law of God, the Shari'a, Islamic Law.

It is a remarkable fact that at the time of the Gulf War, a high proportion of Muslims living in the West supported Saddam Hussein. In the aftermath of the WTC terror, it is now clear from reports in the media that many Muslims, even those living in the West, see these acts of barbarism as acts of heroism; they give their unequivocal support to their hero, Usama bin Laden.

Continuation on a further page.

Political Comment page set up September 24th. 2001. Addition August 2006. March 2008.