Islam does not parallel Christianity or Buddhism. It is a political movement in the guise of a religion. Mohammed carried out 18 military campaigns and his successors conquered vast areas of North Africa from the Byzantines in the west and through to Persia in the east. The ‘commanders of the faithful’ also fought and assassinated one another.

The huge Islamic world (54 countries) today is, in large measure, a result of the ‘convert or die’ option offered to Islam’s opponents.

As Bernard Lewis, probably the world’s foremost scholar of Islam, points out: there is no separation of mosque and state in Islam. This explains why both Iran and Saudi Arabia can be classified as
theocracies where Islamic thinking determines policy.

MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) once translated an interview on Saudi radio in which the head executioner was interviewed about his work. He explained that Saudi courts judge their cases according to Sharia law and, therefore, he has no ethical problem amputating the hands of convicted thieves.

Anyone criticizing the Koran or Mohammed (remember the Rushdie affair and Danish cartoons) is likely to draw a fatwa death decree and be murdered just like Theo Van Gogh was in Holland. Indeed, anyone leaving Islam for another religion has to be executed according to Islamic law.

Christians and Jews are allowed to live in Islamic countries but only as second class citizens with limited rights. Murdering Copts in Egypt and the assassination of a Christian government minister in Pakistan last week, not to mention the precarious situation of Christians in Iraq (where worshippers were slaughtered in a church last Christmas) and Gaza reflect the delicate Christian predicament in the Middle East (except in Israel, of course).

However, special hate is reserved for Jews. Some Koranic verses oblige Moslems to kill Jews wherever they may find them. Jew-hating TV programs, movies and books are mass produced in Egypt and Turkey and distributed throughout the Islamic world. Islam’s leading scholars and authorities adamantly advocate Israel’s destruction.

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Moslem Brotherhood are all dedicated to this objective. It is a religious duty to fight Zionists (i.e. Jews) to the death.

Islamikazes (see Rafael Israeli’s book Islamikaze, Manifestations of Islamic Martyology, 2003) blow themselves up. Human bombs in the framework of jihad are highly esteemed. ‘Suicide bombers’ go straight to heaven.

The Palestinian Authority’s schools teach positively about suicide bombers. Streets and city squares are named for “successful” martyrs (i.e. Jew killers). Even Islamabulli, Sadat’s assassin is a hero in Iran and has a Tehran street named after him.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a spiritual leader, enjoys more influence in the Islamic world than the pope has in Christendom. He is the world’s leading Islamic thinker whose declarations guide the Moslem Brotherhood which is active in most Moslem countries, Western Europe and the US as well. Indeed, Barry Rubin’s book, The Moslem Brotherhood (2010) is a must read for anyone interested in Islamic political activism.

Briefly, the Moslem brothers are a force to be reckoned with in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and elsewhere. The Brotherhood (Ikhwan) is the strongest political force with an agenda calling for the establishment of Islamic states ruled in accordance with Islamic
law.

The big losers in any Islamic state (e.g. Taliban-run Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia) are women. Moslem women are not allowed to live independent lives.

From birth to marriage they are completely controlled by their fathers and then by their husbands. Do read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s two books for a first-hand description of a woman’s life in Islamic societies where wife beating and “honor” killings are acceptable behavior.

Samuel Huntington wrote about the "clash of civilizations" while Melanie Phillips, author of Londonstan, and several other observers of Islam in Europe today predict an Islamic cultural and political
take-over in the not too distant future.