As anyone familiar with the discourse on the root causes of Islamic "terrorism" is aware of, there is a common misconception that anyone who criticizes Islam vicariously hates all of those who practice it. There are probably several differing reasons for this, and for each Islamophile it is different. Some people run out of intellectual capital and resort to ad-hominem attacks. Some people succumb to white-guilt syndrome, afraid to criticize anyone or anything different from them, even a system of beliefs, ignoring the fact that Nazism, communism, and the Klan are systems of beliefs, yet are unabashedly (and properly) criticized on a regular basis.

The only difference between Islam and these belief systems, at least at face value, is that Islam is labeled a "religion" and the others are not. In general white guilt arises from our shame of past crimes, such as slavery and, if you want to label it as such, the genocide of American Indians, committed by white people. In the case of Islam, we fall victim to Holocaust guilt - Hitler castigated Jews and tried to wipe them out entirely. All too often people who criticize Islam are equated with Hitler or Nazis, as if Hitler had good reason to hate Jews but went overboard in his acts, or as if Judaism and Islam are the same religion, or even value-neutral.

Whichever and whatever you'd like to attach Hitler's hatred of Jews to, all of his justifications were complete and total fallacies. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Jewish Blood Libel are two well-known examples. Hitler lied about the Jews. And he didn't just tell little lies, or twist the truth a little, he lied through his teeth. His solution for them was also "final" and entailed wiping them from the face of the Earth. So the distinction must be made that, A.) Hitler blatantly lied about the Jews, B.) his solution was to kill them all, and, C.) Islam is not the same religion as Judaism and has a completely different system of beliefs.

There are some in the general populis who, while holding accurate or justified opinions on Islam, are still totally ignorant of Islam itself. For instance, they assume that because followers of the religion of Islam are responsible for or involved in violence across the globe on a daily basis, that Islam itself must be evil. This seems like common sense on the surface, but then again, the actual numbers of Muslims committing acts of violence are far outweighed by those who are not committing acts of violence. Neither the percentage of violent Muslims nor the percentage of non-violent Muslims can be used as a basis for forming an opinion on Islam itself. Argumentum ad-numerum - the logic that the number of people who believe or act a certain way proves an argument - is a logical fallacy. At one point in time, many things were believed true by vast portions of the population - such as the belief that the Earth is flat and lay at the center of the universe - yet turned out in the end to be false. Today we view the idea of a flat Earth and geo-centric universe as ridiculous ideas.

Yet there are others who approach criticism of Islam from a position of knowledge. Let it be known that an educated opinion does not necessarily make it correct. And an opinion by an intelligent person does not always mean it's a good one. As an example, for those of you familiar with theoretical physics, Einstein at first rejected the idea that the universe must have begun with the Big Bang, even though his own theory predicted it, until Edwin Hubble showed him the Doppler shift of distant galaxies showing almost all of them were moving away from us, at increasing speeds. He also rejected the idea of a singularity - a black hole - but was of course proven wrong by people like Hawking. And, finally, he rejected Quantum Mechanics, because, as he said, "God does not throw dice." (God apparently does throw dice, since there has never been a prediction of Quantum Mechanics that's been proven false by observation.)

So, that being said, many of us present our argument, augment it with facts, and the reader is free to accept it or dismiss it as he or she will. As for myself, I have endeavored, particularly on my website, to present the facts in such a way so the reader can verify them on his or her own. The accumulation of all my sources are documented; I do not conceal my methods. And, above all else, although lately I've fallen out of the practice of encouraging it, it is my wish that no one take me blindly at my word, but study the material on their own and see for themselves if they find my conclusions wanting. It would have been too easy for me to buy a book or two from Robert Spencer or Srdja Trifkovic and leave it at that, accepting their conclusions without verifying them on my own. I am not oblivious to the fact that, White/Holocaust-guilt aside, criticizing the system of beliefs adhered to by over a billion people is a serious issue. But, as cliche'd as the saying is, and as much as I've overused it, we should all endeavor to know our enemy, for if we do, we will be much better equipped to defeat him. Our enemy claims to have a divine mandate to kill us, to ruin our prosperity and destroy our cultural heritage. We should not blindly take him at his word, but by the same token, we should not blindly dismiss him, either.

Without knowing the level of knowledge of other individuals - I can only speak for myself - I encourage anyone who finds fault in Islamic teachings to act similarly. The first and foremost target of criticism should be the system itself, not those who live under it. Bin Laden doesn't make Islam evil anymore than the moderate Muslim makes Islam moderate. How can it? Catholicism has brought both unimaginable cruelties and sufferings to the world, yet also great, wonderous, selfless and loving acts. Who was the true Catholic: Mother Theresa or the Grand Inquisitor? The only way to know is to examine scripture and see where the actions of these people fall. And so I have done with Islam.

In conclusion, my final analysis of Islam is not unknown to anyone familiar with me. Having studied Islamic text for several years, understanding abrogation, the progression of the revelation, and the relation between the Qur'an and the hadith in Islamic jurisprudence, and, having compared my understanding of these texts with the great minds of Islamic history - Ibn Khaldun, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Kathir, Al-Mawardi, et. al. - and finally applying these facts to the history they are inevitably responsible for, I am satisfied that my opinion is given from a position of knowledge, not ignorance. It is impossible to dismiss my opinions from a position of ignorance, though many ignorant people feel qualified to do so regardless.

It is difficult to grasp that an indictment of a system of beliefs is not therefore an indictment of people who follow it. As I am fond of saying, who knows: maybe 1400 years from now Nazis and Klan Members will be shouting to the heavens that those among them that believe in racial superiority represent a "tiny minority of 'extremists'". This will do nothing to change the origins of these belief systems, nor their histories. And Islam's history, like much of its texts, is offensive and terrible. It is not inconcievable to me that, in an era of light-speed communications, where, in many parts of the world, people fill their heads with what other people say, be it on radio, TV, or the internet, rather than going straight to the source, many of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims are unaware of what abrogation is, or that the Qur'an has a general chronology (essential to understanding abrogation). And it is conceivable that many Muslims do not have the means to collect the many volumes of hadith (I own but two collections, and they represent no less than 13 volumes), and thus are not fully aware of Muhammad's example - particularly his attitude and actions towards the Jews of Arabia (those who reject the hadith outright notwithstanding).

This has never been the point of my criticism. Of course, one cannot logically criticize Islam without applying some sort of criticism towards those who follow it. At the very least, if my opinion is correct, those Muslims who do not practice or believe in what Ibn Khaldun described as the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force - aka "jihad" - are ignorant of core tenets of their faith. This is, of course, a harsh criticism of many Muslims: to call a person of faith ignorant of his or her own faith, although many Christians are unabashedly ignorant of their own faith.

The fact that many Muslims do not believe in jihad as I describe it does not change the fact that, as I've proven to an extent that no one can objectively say is not at the very least worthy of alarm, this is in fact what Islam as an ideology teaches and, therefore, any person who believes in Allah as God and Muhammad as His messenger, and has access to the scripture, becomes a threat; there is the ever present danger that, if he does not believe in or understand jihad, he will come to that realization in the future, or have children who will. One should never underestimate the power of faith - the allure of unimaginable bliss paradise offers if one is obedient, and the horror of the unimaginable pain of hell if one disobeys. No religion better illustrates this ultimatum than Islam.

I am not trying to say that Americans should go around spitting and cursing at Muslims. But a dialogue must take place if we believe in, love, and wish to protect our cultural heritage, because, if I am right, the presence of Islam within our culture is a threat to it - maybe not in our lifetimes, but it is well underway in Europe, and, especially with all we as Americans have to lose, we should vigorously reject historical inevitability. This problem will not alleviate itself if we continue to pat "moderate" Muslims on the back, assuring them that we "know" nothing is really wrong with their religion, only that there is something wrong with the Bin Laden's of the world - most of us never having picked up a Qur'an in our lives, and not even knowing what the Sunnah is, and therefore having no basis of "knowing" something is wrong with Bin Laden, not Islam. In the same way that we reduced the Klan to nothing, despite its once enormous influence in America, so too must we appeal to Muslims' sense of humanity, and ask them, if they believe in the values our founders set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the Constitution, etc.: why do they adhere to a system of beliefs that teaches inequality between those who believe and those who do not? Why do they adhere to a system that makes violence against those who disbelieve acceptable, even mandated? Why do they adhere to a system that oppresses women? And if they express ignorance or denial of these things, they must be made aware, not in a way that should humiliate them, but in a way that causes them to reflect on their humanity.