{"id":7006,"date":"2014-02-12T10:27:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T18:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7006"},"modified":"2014-02-12T10:27:14","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T18:27:14","slug":"the-pentagons-bow-to-islamic-extremism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-pentagons-bow-to-islamic-extremism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon’s Bow to Islamic Extremism"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCaving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It\u2019s a major win for political correctness and<\/p>\n

\"RaymondIbrahim.com\"
RaymondIbrahim.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

a big loss for military unit cohesion,\u201d said a\u00a0recent report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI is tracking more than 100 suspected jihadi-infiltrators of the U.S. military.\u00a0 Just last month, Craig Benedict Baxam, a former Army soldier and convert to Islam, was sentenced to seven years in prison due to his al-Qaeda\/jihadi activities.\u00a0\u00a0 Also last month, Mozaffar Khazaee, an Iranian-American working for the Defense Department, was arrested for sending secret documents to America\u2019s enemy, Iran.<\/p>\n

According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the new religious accommodations\u2014to allow Islamic beards, turbans, and hijabs\u2014which took effect very recently, would \u201creduce both the instances and perception of discrimination among those whose religious expressions are less familiar to the command.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report concludes that, \u201cMaking special accommodations for Islam will only attract more Muslims into the military at a time when two recent terror cases highlight the ongoing danger of Muslims in uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s worse than that; for not only will it attract \u201cmore Muslims,\u201d it will attract precisely the\u00a0wrong<\/em>\u00a0kinds of Muslims, AKA, \u201cIslamists,\u201d \u201cradicals,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n

This is easily demonstrated by connecting the dots and understanding that Muslims who adhere to visible, non-problematic aspects of Islam\u2014growing beards and donning hijabs\u2014often indicate their adherence to non-visible, problematic aspects of Islam.<\/p>\n

Consider it this way: Why do some Muslim men wear the prescribed beard and why do some Muslim women wear the prescribed hijab? Most Muslims would say they do so because Islam\u2019s prophet Muhammad commanded them to (whether via the Koran or Hadith).<\/p>\n

Regarding the Muslim beard, Muhammad wanted his followers to\u00a0look different<\/a>\u00a0from \u201cinfidels,\u201d namely Christians and Jews, so he ordered his followers to \u201ctrim closely the moustache and grow the beard.\u201d Accordingly, all\u00a0Sunni schools of law<\/a>\u00a0maintain that it is forbidden\u2014a \u201cmajor sin<\/a>\u201d\u2014for men to shave their beards (unless, of course, it is part of a\u00a0stratagem against the infidel<\/a>, in which case it is permissible).<\/p>\n

The question begs itself: If such Muslims meticulously follow the minor, \u201couter\u201d things of Islam simply because their prophet made some utterances concerning them in the Hadith, logically speaking, does that not indicate that they also follow, or at the very least accept as legitimate, the major, \u201cinner\u201d themes Muhammad constantly emphasized in both the Koran and Hadith\u2014such as enmity for and deceit of the infidel, and, when capable, perpetual jihad?<\/p>\n

Even in the Islamic world this connection between visible indicators of Islamic piety and jihadi tendencies are well known.\u00a0 Back in 2011, when Islamists were dominating Egypt\u2019s politics, secularist talk show host Amr Adib of\u00a0Cairo Today<\/a>\u00a0mocked the then calls for a \u201cmillion man beard\u201d march with his trademark sarcasm: \u201cThis is a great endeavor! After all, a man with a beard can never be a thug, can never rape a woman in the street, can never set a church on fire, can never fight and quarrel, can never steal, and can never be dishonest!\u201d<\/p>\n

His sarcasm was not missed on his Egyptian viewership which knew quite well that it is precisely those Muslims who most closely follow the minutia of Muhammad\u2014for example, by growing a beard\u2014that are most prone to violence, deceit, and anti-infidel sentiments, all of which were also advocated by Islam\u2019s prophet.<\/p>\n

Speaking more seriously, Adib had added that this issue is not about growing a beard, but rather, \u201conce you grow your beard, you give proof of your commitment and fealty to everything in Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, after Egypt\u2019s June 30 Revolution ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, \u201covert signs of piety<\/a>\u00a0[beards and hijabs] have become all it takes to attract suspicion from security forces at Cairo checkpoints and vigilantes looking to attack Islamists.\u201d\u00a0 Clubs and restaurants\u00a0banned entrance<\/a>\u00a0to those wearing precisely these two \u201covert signs of piety.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Egyptians instinctively understand how fealty to the Muslim beard evinces fealty, or at least acceptance, to all those\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0problematic things Muhammad commanded, even in fuzzy Western op-eds, the connection sometimes peeks out. Consider the following excerpt from a\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0piece titled \u201cBehold the Mighty Beard, a Badge of Piety and Religious Belonging\u201d:<\/p>\n

[A]ll over the Muslim world, the full beard has come to connote piety and spiritual fervor\u2026. Of course, the beard is only a sign of righteousness. It is no guarantor, as Mr. Zulfiqar [a Muslim interviewee] reminds us: \u201cI recall one gentleman who came back from a trip to Pakistan and remarked to me,\u00a0\u2018I learned one thing: the longer the beard, the bigger the crook.\u2019 His anticipation was people with big beards would be really honest, but he kept meeting people lying to him.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The italicized portion speaks for itself. Whereas the Muslim beard ostensibly represents religious piety, some people, mostly Westerners, are shocked to find that those who wear it are often \u201ccrooks\u201d and \u201cliars.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Islam, however, outer signs of religiosity on the one hand, and corruption and deceit on the other, are quite compatible. After all, the same source\u2014Islam\u2019s prophet Muhammad, as recorded in the Hadith\u2014that tells Muslims to grow a beard\u00a0also<\/em>\u00a0advocates deception<\/a>, the plundering of infidels, the\u00a0keeping of sex slaves<\/a>,adult \u201cbreast feeding,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and all sorts of other practices antithetical to Western notions of piety if not decency.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, it\u2019s the same with the hijab, or cloak that some Muslim women wear, also on Muhammad\u2019s command.\u00a0One reformed Islamic jihadi from Egypt\u00a0accurately observes<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe proliferation of the hijab is strongly correlated with increased terrorism\u2026. Terrorism became much more frequent in such societies as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, and the U.K.\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, at a time when the U.S. should at the very least be wary of those who openly wear their Islamic radicalism around their face and head\u2014beards for males, hijabs for females\u2014the U.S. Pentagon (of all places) is embracing them in \u201ccelebration of multiculturalism.\u201d \u00a0Where loyalty to the U.S. is most needed, the Pentagon embraces those who show that their loyalty is elsewhere (among other things, the beard and hijab are meant to separate \u201cpure believers\u201d from \u201cimpure infidels\u201d).<\/p>\n

Of course, none of this is surprising considering that the Pentagon also considers Evangelical Christians and Catholics as\u00a0\u201cextremists\u201d on a par with al-Qaeda<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 \u201cCaving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It\u2019s a major win for political correctness and a big loss for military unit cohesion,\u201d said a\u00a0recent report. This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[225,227,285],"tags":[927,1039,1017,1061,30,644,706,1060,552],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1P0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6840,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-cleric-incites-children-to-slaughter-christians-and-alawites-in-syria\/","url_meta":{"origin":7006,"position":0},"title":"Muslim Cleric Incites Children to ‘Slaughter’ Christians and Alawites in Syria","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 A video recently appeared of an Islamic Sunni cleric in Syria inciting Muslim schoolboys, most of whom appear \u00a0to be between the ages of five-twelve, to hate and kill Christians and others. 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