In my favorite scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a group of villagers brings forward a woman who they accuse of being a witch. They reason that since witches burn because they are made of wood and if wood, like a duck, floats, that: "If... she... weighs... the same as a duck... she's made of wood... And therefore?... A witch!"

If this same flawed logic is employed, then Islam: What the West Needs to Know can properly be considered a film. It is slapped together with the same cinematic finesse as an in-flight safety video and peppered with special "effects" and talking head "experts" one would only find in a Monty Python skit and, well, this "film."

The producers are Quixotic Media, an unnamed team (at least on their website) that "seeks to take on issues of social significance that major media will not." The end credits list the producers/directors as Gregory M. Davis and Bryan Daly, both people with names generic enough that my Google searches did not produce any information about them, nor does their website says much else about them and I should note looks as if it has been put together by a seventh grade student begrudgingly taking a web site design class. (Note #1 to producers: fire your web designer.)

The central thesis of the film is that contrary to what western leaders may say, Islam is not a religion of peace. The film starts with a series of clips from President Bush and Prime Minister Blair who each say that Islam is not a religion of violence. The film's website notes, "Virtually every major Western leader has over the past several years expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets." Aside from Bush's problematic understanding of peace (in which even the likes of Ariel Sharon is called a man of "peace"), the directors fail to see how statements like this often constitute political posturing meant to distract from often bellicose, discriminatory, or lop-sided policy. The films two clips of Bush and Blair are, ironically, speeches announcing the commencement of the Iraq war. They also fail to to mention that many western leaders - Silvio Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin, General Boykin, for example - have made little effort to hide their contempt for Islam and its adherents.

The directors believe we have been duped. The result is a comically self-righteousness 98-minute film that seeks to correct (and to warn) the west one simple thing: Islam is not what you think. It's a religion of violence. "What part of kill don't you understand?" one "expert" says, looking deadpan. It's a priceless moment that should ideally be punctuated by a scene of a burly man taking a large bite out of an oversized, chicken drumstick.

The film is divided into six parts, each part bearing a catchy name like "more than a religion." Interspersed between the interviews with the film's six or seven "experts," are quotes from the Qur'an or hadith read by the film's narrator who would win hands down in a contest to impersonate Steven Colbert's fake news voice. As the narrator speaks, we see the shot of a fuzzy Mughal miniature, which truthfully looks like an ancient rendition of Jimi Hendrix and his burning guitar. (Note #2 to producers: invest in a better scanner and art research department next time.)

But a summer film would be remiss without special effects and "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" is not without them. In my favorite segment, we see a bird's eye view of a computer generated world map as the narrator talks about the conquest of Islam throughout the world. Each time the narrator mentions a country that Muslims invaded, a small fire lights up in that country. Did the producers really expect to include such sophomoric tricks and yet also be taken seriously? (Note #3 to producers: Qatar is missing on one of your maps.)

Aside from the film's homage to cheesy South Asian wedding video special effects, we are subjected to hearing five or six talking heads offering their "expertise." One of them is Robert Spencer, a Frontpage magazine columnist and current director of JihadWatch. He sprinkles his observations about Islam with a liberal use of Arabic terms, as if somehow this is supposed to impress us. There can be a peaceful Muslim, he tells us, but not a peaceful Islam. Later in the film, he credits Edward Said as someone who Islamized Middle Eastern Studies in the US and wrote his seminal Orientalism to silence critics of Islam. It's a scene that is more embarrassing than offensive.

Another expert we hear from his Srđa Trifković, a Serbian historian who served as a spokesman for the Bosnian Serbian government. He has called the rape of Bosnian women "entirely fictitious" and once said, "For a Christian the real task is to help our fellow humans who are trapped in Islam and to help them become free." His comments in the film are so absurd that to respond would only be to give credence to his assertion of being a "historian."

The film does, however, have its redeeming moments. Bat Ye'or, an Egyptian born British Jew whose books include titles like The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, offers a useful grammatical lesson on to use the word infidel in a sentence. She sprinkles her commentary with sentences like "Islam is a religion started to fight infidelity and to bully infidels until they rid the infidels of their infidelity." Its no wonder that Sidney H. Griffith in the International Journal of Middle East Studies writes of her: "The problems one has with the book are basically twofold: the theoretical inadequacy of the interpretive concepts jihad and dhimmitude, as they are employed here; and the want of historical method in the deployment of the documents which serve as evidence for the conclusions reached in the study. There is also an unfortunate polemical tone in the work."

My favorite commentator in the "film" is Walid Shoebat, author of Why I left Jihad. A native of Palestine, he compares joining a Palestinian terrorist group to rushing a fraternity. "The martyrdom applications were full," he says. "We had initiation ceremonies which included killing a Jew." But his story lacks credibility. Perhaps this is because he seems too eager to denigrate his old self in order to self-aggrandize his present post-Islam enlightenment. In one scene, he talks about watching CNN at work during the first Gulf, when he was still a terrorist sympathizer. "Watching the TV with my colleagues at work I had to restrain my excitement when I saw the American targets being hit by Sadaam," he said. "I would drive home from work with my windows open, put my head out the window, and shout Allah-u Akbar the entire way home," he says. It's a visual that just begs comparison to Jim Carrey's driving antics in "Ace Ventura." The question is - how do you go from that form of (silly) zealotry to Fox News Islam basher and Zionist apologist in just ten years?

There are many more oddities like this in the film, including clips of Muslims speaking at rallies and Friday prayers, etc. One of the clips, to the credit of the producers, is powerful and disturbing because it shows a group of British Muslims who chant that they will destroy England and then take their women as war booty. But the other clips are odd selections, including one from a Friday prayers at a Sunni, Baathist mosque in Iraq on the eve of US invasion. Should we blame the audience and the khatib for feeling a bit testy just days before the "shock and awe" campaign? (Note #4 to producers: If you want to show Muslims looking bad, you will have to do more than show a bunch of uncles in ill-fitting salwar khamezes. Perhaps you should show footage about honor crimes in Pakistan or sectarian violence in Iraq, both examples of the often-deplorable tendencies of some Muslims.)

How then should Muslims regard this film? To call it offensive is as painstakingly obvious as saying that water is wet. The more important question is whether the film is inciteful. I am disinclined to believe so. Inciteful films - and oddly I have seen a fair share - succeed by emotionally manipulating the audience and directing their rage at a given community, implicitly urging often-violent action. But "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" is benign because it is likely to be regarded as authoritative only by that rare sub-segment of society that finds reality shows like "Wife Swap" to be high culture.

That indeed may be its redeeming quality - the film is as flawed and deceitful as a businessman hawking a pyramid scheme. And we all know that no one, of course, has ever fallen for a pyramid scheme.

Well, certainly Muslims are not peaceful people. So whether Islam is a religion of peace or not is an irrelevent argument. Whats the point of a religion if nobody practices it. History of Islam is rife with non-stop violence and warfare from Day 1000.

The only people who go around promoting Islam as a religion of peace are people living in cozy confines of Western societies, while making good money in a utterly secular system.

What is interesting is how these ultra violent westerners seem to be completely impervious to their vast HUGE military industrial complexes in their own backayrds and keep picking on a bunch of "backward hillbillies" i.e. Muslims as violent people. I mean these goons (Muslims) can't even collectively manufacture a bicycle, and people making F-16s are telling us, they are violent.

We live in weird times.

The other thing I notice with great amusement is little boys fro perfectly protective middle class homes. How some of them are what, not even the size of a badminton racket, but they'll be running around the house shooting at everything with a toy gun or a make believe object. And kicking and chopping at you as soon as they find you to be a "harmless uncle."

Violence, I tell you, its programmed into the male genes. It is not learned behavior. Just need to get it out into the open by creating the right environment. And booooooooom.

Nice review. Heard about this farce a while back. The likes of non-historian moon-Bat Yeor(inventer of "dhimmitude," probably the most retarded and misleading term in orientalist "discourse") and con artist Walid Shoebat should be enough to dismiss this little hateumentary. Nor should it be surprising that the same straussian neocon crowd pushing the "clash of civilizations" mantra is trying to whip up anti-Muslim propaganda.
What do you expect from judeo-christofascists? Muslims should make their own documentaries on Anti-Goyism and the rest of the zionist armageddonist sewer.

Good review. One would laugh, if it weren't so sad (and, well, Nazi-like in his propagandism), at the assertion that "Islam is a religion of violence." And the born-again Christian Bush's kill sheet? Yeah, Christianity, religion of peace, right. It makes on think of a line from Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, "If Jesus* came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

*pbuh

Asif - Islam is a religion of peace and more than peace. Why do I think so? Its said that all of the Nabis presented their people with the Islamic truth and their best possible application. Moosa (AS) taught his people that they are entitled to an "eye for an eye". His miracle was the splitting of the sea and the destruction of the army of pharoah. Isa (AS) taught his people that is better to "turn the other cheek". His miracle was the healing of the sick.

Muhammad (SAW) taught that it was better to forgive and reconcile. This is called Ihsaan. And his miracles include the resoration of the Kaaba to Allah (SWT) and Makkah to the Meccans in bloodless and merciful victory. We all know this ... but we all in turn think that this was achieved through targeted warfare and ignore the social revolution and renewal of humanity that occurred in the society. As muslims lets reclaim the peaceful methods of resistance in Islam. The Battles muslims fought weren't the centre of the revolution, it was the quiet transformation of people from Jahilliyah into true human nobility (I think its called Ihsaan - throwing around arabic words to sound cool)

and that is why I think Islam is a religion of peace and more than peace .. Thank you

as for the movie - I just a visitied another funny poorly conceived website. http://www.stoptheism.com/ - how do we get similarly conceived material out of muslim communities? You know - the kuffaarisation (my brand spanking new word) of all things western by muslim ideologues. You know ~ talk to someone about Einsteins law of relativity and you get a response that lawyers are allowed to lie and we not like that..

July 25, 2006

Alt.Muslim "reviews" Islam: What the West Needs to Know

When I wrote my book Islam Unveiled in 2001, I hoped that thoughtful Muslims would address the points I raised in it, and that we could open up a dialogue that might be useful in illuminating what could be done about the elements of Islam that give rise to fanaticism and violence. In that I was naive. The response by critics to that book as well as to every other book that I have written has consisted only of vague assertions that I am ignorant of Islam, without ever providing a single substantive refutation of anything I wrote.

It's the same with this Alt.Muslim review of the documentary in which I appear, Islam: What The West Needs To Know. Reviewer Zahir Janmohamed seems to think that sneering is a good substitute for argumentation. He raises not a single substantive point to attempt to show that what the movie says is wrong.

This is an extremely common tendency, and that's why I am writing this post. The opposition is, from an argumentative standpoint, unarmed. They know that what we are saying about Islam, jihad, and terrorism is true -- if they really believed it wasn't, they would show their readers the exact ways in which we are wrong, but they don't do that, because they can't. But they know that a few well-placed sneers will scare away many people of good will -- and that is a game that they play expertly.

READ THE REST HERE
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/012375.php

Congratulations alt.Muslim, this article gets mentioned by Brian Lamb on C-Span's "Q&A" show.

In the Koran Muhammad's later revelations abrogate his earlier revelations. A good (good in their site) conservative practicing muslin recognizes this. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out his later revelations become more violent toward non-muslins (the west). The point being if one accepts Islam as there religion of choice and believes the Koran to be the revelation of their god 'Allah' then one would indeed accept the more violent revelations over the more peaceful abrogated verses. Moderate muslins take a more liberal interpretation of the Koran ignoring abrogation and accepting also those passages with a somewhat more peaceful view toward the west. Islam by its very nature (if the Koran is to be interpret conservatively) is opposed to everything non-muslin. It would be wise for one to read a book or two of muslins who have recanted their faith to see their views on their former religion. A muslin that leaves his religion does so with great cost so they are far and few between but it does happen. I could go on but will stop here. OhÖ I havenít yet but I don plan seeing the film

Throughout the Western world every incident of terrorism is now being related to Islam. Blasphemes Cartoon of our prophets being made and above all Muslims are seen with suspicion or even hatred. Values of our faith are being questioned (e.g. Veil) and every aspect of our religion is being criticized.

Well I just want to rewind back some 1000 years back when pope urban II called upon Christians for a so called Holy war against the Muslims. He not only declared a Holy war but said that any one who participates in this war his all sins should be washed away thus granting an open license to kill all those who are non Christians which is even totally against the 6th Commandment of god given to Moses. So Pope urban issued a religious by pass to heaven. For 300 years Christian waged war on Muslims killing thousands of innocent Muslims and Jews and many of them at time of conquest of Jerusalem only because they were infidels and non believers.

Muslims all that time never said anything against Christianity as they knew that Christianity was a religion from GOD and Christians were people of the book but now 1000 years on same situation has arose again now with tables turned, but now the same catholic church who committed the atrocities 1000 years back mocks Islam . Western Civilization and Christians portray us as terrorists when they should understand that what is happening are not the teachings of Islam but the Anger of the oppressed who have been under suppression for over a century.

Just as 1000 years ago the crusaders were not representing the true Christian values by killing innocent people, the terrorist today are not representing the true Islamic values but in both of these occasions these terrorists have tried to sort protection under the religious umbrella. BUT the disappointing thing is the attitude of Christian Church and Western Christians who should better understand what terrorism and killing of innocent civilians means as they have been themselves indulged in these acts a 1000 years ago.

http://abdulazeem.wordpress.com/