02 October 2006
French Philosophy Teacher Forced Into Hiding After Op-Ed on Islam
By Eva Cahen
Paris (CNSNews.com) - A French philosophy teacher has been forced to leave his home and go into hiding after publishing an op-ed piece in the French daily Le Figaro that criticized Islam and the prophet Muhammed.
Robert Redeker, a published author, wrote on September 19 that "the Koran is a book of extraordinary violence" and Islam is a religion that "exalts violence." Comparing Islam to Chritianity, he wrote: "Jesus is a master of love, Muhammed is a master of hatred."
That day's issue of the newspaper was banned in Tunisia, and a commentator on Al Jazeera television criticized Redeker.
An Islamic website linked to al Qaeda published Redeker's photo, phone number and address, with directions.
Last Friday, interviewed on Europe 1 radio, Redeker said that he and his family had received numerous death threats by e-mail and phone. He said he has been forced to leave his high school teaching job near the southern French city of Toulouse.
In his commentary, Redeker wrote that the Koran revealed the prophet Mohammed as a "warlord without pity, a pillager, someone who massacres Jews and a polygamist."
"Hatred and violence reside in the book by which all Muslims are educated, the Koran," he wrote.
Redeker said that Islam was trying "to impose its rules on Europe" by - for example -- asking swimming pools to have special hours for women only and forbidding caricatures of Islam.
"Islam is trying to force Europe to bend to its vision of mankind. As in the past with communism, the West finds itself under ideological surveillance," he wrote.
A research specialist on Islam told Cybercast News Service that while the vast majority of Muslims condemned the death threats, the piece was insulting and had elicited a radical reaction because it hurt sensibilities.
"Does speaking of the prophet as a pillager and as an exterminator of Jews enrich the debate? I don't think so," said Khadija Moshen-Finan, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) in Paris.
"Even for us Muslims, who say repeatedly that we must debate about the contents of Islam and its evolution in relation to today's international context, these types of articles are not helpful, because they are injurious and are not open to debate."
Moshen-Finan said that when she read the commentary, she concluded that it was just a bad article. "But bad articles should not be censored. I don't think so," she added.
Redeker has been placed under police protection, but he said during the radio interview that he was forced to make his own arrangements in finding safe houses each night.
He said he is no longer able to move around freely and that the Islamic radicals who had threatened him had "succeeded in punishing" him. He felt that he was a victim of the things he's denounced, and he complained that he felt abandoned by the government.
The education minister, Gilles de Robien, said he felt "solidarity" with Redeker but warned that "government employees must show prudence and moderation."
Redeker said his piece was not meant to attack Islam but only certain violent aspects of the religion.
This case comes at a time of renewed debate in Europe over free speech and the right to criticize Islam and the prophet Muhammed.
Last week, a Berlin opera house, fearing a violent reaction, cancelled performances of a Mozart opera, Idomeneo, which showed the severed heads of the prophet Muhammed, Buddha and Jesus Christ.
Last month, Pope Benedict XVI was widely condemned by many Muslims after a speech in Germany that linked the spread of Islam to bloodshed and violence.
16:41 Posted in FRANCE | Permalink | Comments (17) | 
Facebook |
Comments
It would shock and probably offend most Americans to learn the truth that the reason they are here, their power, their affluence and position in the world is directly because of the Islamic religion and the Arab culture. That’s right, the very "ragheads" and "Hajis" (as Limbaugh, Liddy, and some of the others often call them) that the US is now fighting are directly responsible for the preeminence and power of not just the United States, but of the entire Western world in general.
Besides the fact that Western Civilization began in the area of the Fertile Crescent, also known as Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), it is as well an historical fact beyond dispute that it was the learning and sophistication of the Arab culture that led to many of the scientific developments that would later make Europe the cradle of science, learning, and advancement. After the institutionalization of the Islamic religion throughout the Mediterranean region, the extent of Arab learning and culture was such that European Kings, Christian Kings, would send their sons and daughters to be educated in Moslem places such as Cordova and Toledo. Christian Crusaders coming back from the Middle East told of the richness of Arab culture, leading to Europeans’ desire for Arab goods, which in turn led to trade routes between Europe and the Middle East. The resulting wealth created from that trade with the Arabs led to the ascendancy of power for European city-states such as Venice and Florence, which became the birthplaces of the Renaissance in Europe. Arab advancements in navigation, from the Astrolabe to the compass to the fast sailing ship known as the Caravel made possible the arrival in the New World of the Europeans. Let’s not forget, Spain and Portugal, those two powers who held a virtual monopoly on exploration in the New World for quite a while, were, for 700 years, held by the Arabs.
What will gall Americans even more, especially those who call themselves Christian, is the idea that it may be the Arab and Muslim culture that will be not only the birthplace of Western Civilization, but the savior of it as well.
As evidenced by the nightly news right now, there is a war going on. Superficially, it is about things like "terrorism" and "freedom." There are some who go a step further and blame oil and banking, not to mention "lebensraum" for Israel. And while all these things do play a part, some greater than others, the real war here is between two world views.
During the debates that took place in the UN between the internationalist cabal led by France, Germany, Russia, Belgium, and China on one side and the nationalists led by the United States, Great Britain, (and behind the scenes, Israel,) there was this "tossing around" of phrases in coded language. The nationalist crowd, represented in the debates by Colin Powell, spoke of "Old Europe" in a castigating attempt to portray those opposing the war against Iraq as somehow backwards in their thinking, as opposed to those in the New World, who were enlightened and were here to save all humanity against dangerous men and dangerous ideas. And although we know that the reasons for the internationalist crowd opposing the war against Iraq had little to do with anything other than protecting their own business interests as well as staving off US hegemony in the world in favor of internationalist hegemony, it did illustrate that there is, at least on the part of the "coalition of the willing" a desire to do away with that ethos held by the Old World (meaning the Middle-East) that serves as an obstacle in building that New World Order that Bush the Elder discussed more than a decade ago, even if it means seeing the US leading it rather than the UN.
To the "New World," and by default the New World Order, the Arab/Muslim world is backwards in its values. It prohibits abortion and birth control. They have large families, as opposed to the West, where the average family has only 2 children. It prohibits usury banking, to which the West credits its own economic superiority. Theirs is a "closed" society (read into this no sodomy, pornography, gay lifestyle, et al) Theirs is a "cruel" society (read into this-they do not have people on death row for 20 years) And finally, they will not play the game the way the market wants it played, meaning, they want a just price for their only real source of wealth, their oil, instead of giving it away to the West for a fraction of its worth. In other words, the picture that has just been painted here is, the Muslim world is now what the Christian world once was and should be.
One can already hear the roar coming out of the mouths of many who have not been thinking of this in a critical way, particularly those well-paid mouthpieces on TV and radio masquerading themselves as Christians. "The religion of Mohammed is better than the religion of Jesus Christ?!" No, rather, what is meant here is that the religion of Islam resembles Christianity more than does the Christianity of the West today, because the Christianity of the West today isn’t Christianity at all, but a watered-down amalgamation of New Ageism mixed with certain common spiritual attributes that, although called Christian, can be found in almost every known religion. Through decades of destructive influence and propaganda through media and academia, mainstream Christianity in the West has been reduced to one remaining commandment, vague and hard to pin-point which is "be nice."
The fact of the matter is, putting aside all the other reasons surrounding this war that were enumerated at the beginning of this essay, what exists in the Middle East, or in The Old World, as some would call it, is a culture that is still devoted to principles concerning basic moral values, values that have not yet surrendered to the corrupting influence of Western media or Western money. Within the last 50 years, every culture has fallen before this corrupting power that seeks to enslave all men in such a way that the individual is reduced to the value of what he produces and what he consumes, and in pursuit of that method, the individuals behind this program have quietly but decisively removed every obstacle in their way, be it religion, culture, morals, tradition, or world view, through the methods of media, academia, and finance; that is, except the culture encapsulated in the Islamic/Arabic World.
By the description "Arabic/Islamic," it should not be understood as solely a "Muslim" thing. The culture existing in the Arab world is held by both Christian and Muslim alike. There are millions of Christians, who have in essence the same culture with their Muslim counterparts in much the same way as most Americans, regardless of religion, have the same culture. It is those Christians and Muslims alike who reject these "modern" notions such as abortion, birth control, sodomy, pornography, usury banking, and "market value" of services and resources. They still view the family, the traditional family, with all its traditional roles, as the most important building block of their society, and they take very seriously anything that threatens it. They recognize the value of their children, and how dangerous the moral relativism of the West has become, threatening the stability of society directly. They recognize that if their children and society as a whole are subjected to ideas that promote moral decay for an extended period of time, what will eventually and unavoidably be produced is national decay.
One should consider the fact that the New World Order has used and is using all its resources and influence to emasculate and neutralize all opposition to its agenda in the world. The Catholic Church, once a political power to be feared by presidents and prime ministers the world over, has been rendered obsolete. Through mouthpieces such as John Paul II, the New World Order has been openly embraced, and if at times the church gets a little rambunctious and steps out of line, well, the NWO crowd merely runs new stories revealing allegations of pedophilia and abuse. The mainstream Protestant groups, led by influential people on the television and radio, may talk of the dangers of the NWO and the secularization of the West, yet still openly embrace Bush when he pushes through various pieces of legislation that rob us of our freedoms under the guise of protection from terrorism, as well as the practice of conveniently "forgetting" about Bush’s caving in to the pro-abortion lobby in various instances. So, with the exception of a few pockets of token resistance, there is no one left standing in the way of the NWO except the Arab/Muslim World.
If by some miracle the Arab/Muslim world is victorious against this onslaught, and the secular/atheistic influence of the NWO agenda is reduced to such a level as to allow the Christian West to regain its foothold where it once stood, it will be necessary to credit the religion of Islam and the Arab world for not buckling under in the face of extermination. And it will be we, the Christian West and Western Civilization, who will be the beneficiaries of "Islamic Extremism."
Posted by: By Mark Glenn | 03 October 2006
people should not say things about other reliogns because that will cause more hatered than it is now. why wont anyone just mind his businss and leave islam alone and leave the mid-east alone
Posted by: ahm alb | 03 October 2006
I must correct you brother Ahm. We must fight the infidels wherever we find them. ALLAH ACKBAR! If a man remains on the Earth who breaths and does not confess There is one God and Muhammed is his Prophet (pbuh) then we must continue to fight. Even if you find infedels who live peacefully for you you must fight and kill them if they do not accept the peaceful message of Islam. All muslims must be willing to take up the sword and slice the heads of anybody who does not want to convert to Islam the most peaceful and only true religion.
So even if they "leave us alone" we must not leave them alone! We must force them to convert or die. The stupid rulers of Europe and America do not understand this and that helps our cause so much that I do not even have to hide my intentions. Do not be weak Ahm take up the sword and kill them! Let us dance in their blood together for ours is the most peaceful and true religion! Ameen!
Posted by: American Muslim | 04 October 2006
er Ahm THAT's why we citizens of free nations cannot "leave Islam alone" . Your death cult warriors won't leave US alone. Do you understand Ahm? Many among your number want to kill us for not being Moslems.
Posted by: concerned canadian | 04 October 2006
Americans kill Muslim children in Iraq everyday, and why? Because your bible says so, read for yourself!!!
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:9, KJV) "Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9, New American Bible) "a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!" (Psalm 137:9, Jerusalem Bible)
Concerned Canadian, ask a Christian friend whether he or she should feel happy to dash a child against the rocks. Your friend will most likely stare at you in horror, much less believe this idea exists in their sacred Bible.While Prophet Muhammad loved and forgave children for throwing stones at him, the Bible shows ZERO tolerance to even innocent children.
http://www.answering-christianity.com/prophet_muhammad_not_murderer.htm
Posted by: Another_exchristian | 05 October 2006
American Muslim you should read the Quran where it says..
17:33 Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just cause. And if anyone is slain wrongfully, we have given his heir authority (to demand qisas or to forgive): but let him nor exceed bounds in the matter of taking life; for he is helped (by the Law).
Obviously you must be a Christian to promote such senseless Murder. A Muslim follows Quran. Why are you following the bibles instructions to murder?
Kill Nonbelievers
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Kill People for Working on the Sabbath
The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.' (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT
Posted by: A challenge to "American Muslim" from a MUSLIM american | 05 October 2006
Salam alaikum Muslimin,
The Guy who calls himself American Muslim is either majnoon or a Christian pretending to be a Muslim. If he is a Muslim I ask for the Daleel to back his fatwa. If he is making istjhad he needs to supply the isnad that confirms the ijimah of the Sahabah. Or in the very least he should give the basis of his flawed qiyas. If he can not respond to my specific questions he is either an ignorant Muslim, or a typical Christian.
Ameena.
And before "American Muslim calls me "Brother" like he did Sister Khadijah. I will inform him that Ameena is a feminine name.
Posted by: Ameena Jalil | 05 October 2006
As moderator of this site, I implore all my true Christian Brothers to click on my name above in order to support this site.
GBU
Posted by: WebMaster | 05 October 2006
-----
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:9, KJV) "Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9, New American Bible) "a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!" (Psalm 137:9, Jerusalem Bible)
-----
The above is simply taking bits and pieces of the Bible to draw conclusions that it somehow "incites people to murder".
Heres the full verse...
"Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy are those who pay you back for what you have done to us, who take your babies and smash them against the rock."
Different translations does not leave anyone in a position to do one or the other, stick to the answering-Christianity website, the site which picks and chooses bit by bit to draw it's 'own' conclusion. In fact, where does it imply or either state for people (i.e. the Jews) to murder children? It's simply been misintepreted, it simply asks for God's justice to destroy a evil empire
The author could not take the prophet muhammed being criticised or ripped apart bit by bit, so he instead took out his anger towards another faith unjustifyably by simply taking lines from the Bible and drawing 'his own conclusion'.
Posted by: Jozka Morozov | 05 October 2006
-----
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:9, KJV) "Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9, New American Bible) "a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!" (Psalm 137:9, Jerusalem Bible)
-----
The above is simply taking bits and pieces of the Bible to draw conclusions that it somehow "incites people to murder".
Heres the full verse...
"Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy are those who pay you back for what you have done to us, who take your babies and smash them against the rock."
Different translations does not leave anyone in a position to do one or the other, don't stick to the answering-Christianity website, the site which simply picks and chooses verses bit by bit to draw it's 'own' conclusion. In fact, where does it imply or either state for people (i.e. the Jews) to murder children? It's been completely misintepreted, it simply asks for God's justice to destroy a evil empire, not to go out and murder a whole generation.
The author of answering-christianity could not take the fact that the prophet muhammed was being criticised and exposed, so he instead took out his anger towards another faith unjustifyably by simply taking lines from the Bible and drawing 'his own conclusions'.
Everyone else needs to do further study is needed in order to draw the right conclusion as well the true interpretation.
Posted by: Jozka Morozov | 05 October 2006
Murder by Moses!!!
Numbers 25: 4
The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD's fierce anger may turn away from Israel."
Comment:
if Prophet Muhammad is a murderer for killing enemies? WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLE'S PROPHETS' MURDERS that were blessed by GOD Almighty?
http://www.answering-christianity.com/prophet_muhammad_not_murderer.htm
Posted by: Another_exchristian | 05 October 2006
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and more women than men are converting to Islam. This is the video story of an Irish-American woman who converted to Islam from Christianity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_foBQRmVCAM
Posted by: Irish Muslim | 05 October 2006
------
Murder by Moses!!!
Numbers 25: 4
The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD's fierce anger may turn away from Israel."
Comment:
if Prophet Muhammad is a murderer for killing enemies? WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLE'S PROPHETS' MURDERS that were blessed by GOD Almighty?
------
So if these men were invited in by the Moabite women to 'sacrificial feasts' (location of where the god of Moab, who was a false idol, was worshipped), which included Israelites becoming involved in the cult, for example, rituals included infants being sacrificed in fire, the question should be 'if you were God, would that make you upset and extremely angry whilst you have people believing in a false God? Moses is the Man to lead the Israelites as appointed by God.
In the book of 1.Kings Chapter 18, Queen Jezebel was killing the Lord's Prophets. Elijah was met by Obadiah (was a devout worshipper of the Lord) who was on his way with King Ahab to explore land, Elijah told Obadiah that he was to tell the King that he was here. Ahab labelled Elijah as the "worst troublemaker in Israel".
Elijah had warned Ahab that he, his father were disobeying the Lord's commands and worshipping the idols of Baal.
Elijah wanted to bring all the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 Prophets of the goddess Asherah (supported by Queen Jezebel). Ahab then summoned all the Israelites and the prophets of Baal to meet at Mount Carmel. Elijah then went to the people and said, "How much longer will it take you to make up your minds? If the Lord is God, worship him; but if Baal is God, worship him!"
After proving to the people that their prayers were not being answered by their 'god' (read verses 30 to 39), many had threw themselves to the ground and exclaimed "The Lord is God; the Lord alone is God!". The prophets of Baal were seized and killed.
However, it is also important to look at the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 4, verse 3, where it mentions that the only the ones who worshipped Baal at Mount Peor were "destroyed", those faithful to the Lord "your God" are "still alive today". This was to show what can happen when people defiantly sin against the commandments of God.
Unfortunately, even if there are Bibles with different translations, (I do not DENY that there is a problem with that even today) since it has many translations over our time of the Bible, it shows how people do not look and STUDY THE WHOLE SCRIPTURE from all versions, different centuries etc., therefore producing a different end/conclusion and continue to overlook because they do not wish to carry any such argument further.
But as for islam it was only to arise when a man named muhammed (Prophet), from the Arab Tribe of Quraysh, began preaching in his native town of Mecca, on the north-west of the Arabian ocean shores. His message, the Quran, consisted of warnings about the impending day of reckoning, legal prescriptions, polemic against infidels, an outline of Judeo-Christian and Arab prophetic history and in particular, inciting and encouraging people through speech to adhere to the One True God, associating none other with Him.
Other than that, for those who accept this, there was a programme of action outlined by muhammed (Prophet). A umma (community) was to be formed united in "belief in God and the last day", dissociate yourself from the "unbelievers" by making hijra (an exodus) and then eventually start jihad (war) on those unbelievers in order to convert them to the right belief or to bring them to submission. With this creed, Muhammed was able to win much of northern Arabia.
The problem I have is that muslims outside the middle east are in denial about this and if anyone was to pose any such argument towards the prophet muhammed or the islamic faith, they are put into submission.
Posted by: Jozka Morozov | 05 October 2006
The simple fact is the Prophet Muhammad Prohibited The Killing of Women and Children.
The Biblcal God murder's women and children....
Numbers 31:17-18 "Now kill all the boys [innocent kids]. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
The rules of Jihad according to Islam:..
Innocent people should not be killed.
Women, children, or old people should not be killed or hurt.
Women must not be raped.
Enemies must be treated with justice.
Wounded enemy soldiers must be treated in exactly the same way as one's own soldiers.
The war must stop as soon as the enemy asks for peace.
www.examinethetruth.com
www.faithfreedom.com
www.answering-christianity.com
www.bilalphilips.com
www.meccacentric.com
Posted by: Another Exchristian | 06 October 2006
The simple fact is that every time the above decides that he/she has no counter argument, they have to bring another "one-liner" from the Holy Bible and eventually embrassing themselves again, no one has yet to answer my points.
This is post-comment site, so if you want to continue to post bits and pieces from a website, which has its desire to defame Christianity in anyway they can, then continue to do so, thankfully not many here will fall for that trap. I am available via my website or Father Zakaria, a Coptic Priest at http://www.islam-christianity.net/, he has all the answers to all your questions regarding scripture.
Referring to the actual story in question and not pursing an anti-Christian agenda through internet links, anyone care to denounce the muslims who made such threats towards this innocent Frenchmen and his family?
Posted by: Jozka Morozov | 06 October 2006
Jozka it is obvious that historically christians have been the agressors not Islam.
In 1122 Christian crusaders swept over Jerusalem and slaughtered men, women and children, 'until their horses were knee deep in blood. We then went to the church to thank the Lord for his mercy.'
I left the church at the age of 26. I stopped believing in Christianity when I understood that the majority of Christians are deceived. Most believe the lies taught by their Sunday Preachers.
That is because the Christian teachings that most practice today, have evolved from the heathens. Jesus did not believe in the modern misrepresentation of the so called christian faith which is in actuality part of the anti christ.
My grandfather was a southern Baptist minister. After many years of drifting away from all religion I decided to make a positive change in my life by returning to the Christian church, however I found that the doctoral inconsistencies of the Church and insincerity of many Christians made it extremely difficult to attend the racially segregated services in my vicinity.
To make a long story short when I finally accepted Islam I gained the strength from Allah [glory be unto him.] to give up the vices in my life and become an all in all better human being. I gave up drinking and cigarettes and although I admittedly am not perfect I strive everyday to be a better person through following the true standards of Islam found in Quran and the authentic teachings of the Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him.]
May Allah [God.] bless you and guide the seekers of truth to Gods eternal mercy, which is Islam. Ameen
www.injil.co.uk
Posted by: Another_Exchristian | 06 October 2006
This is a good site talking about Islam and Osama bin Laden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjR1BsTWMVc
Posted by: Molly Shawl | 06 October 2006
The comments are closed.