Deception of Non-Muslims

Muslim spokesmen employ a peculiar style of deceptive propaganda that so far has caught western media off-guard. It takes advanatage of a common assumption among those who have only been exposed to other religions – the assumption that the statements of religious leaders can be taken at face value because religious leaders want people to understand their religion. It takes advantage of western ignorance of Islam while at the same time seeking to maintain that ignorance. It takes advanatage of people's tendency to see Islam as a religion in the traditional sense, rather than as a combination of a militant political ideology and a religion. Thus a Muslim religious leader should not be seen in the same way as most religious leaders. He should be viewed as a combination of politician and religious leader. When addressing a western, non-Muslim audience, he should not be viewed as a typical missionary, but as an astute politician addressing a hostile audience who won't like all of his policies - he will tell you what you want to hear. Viewing them as a politician can be a difficult task as they often combine this with a hypersensitivity to criticism or direct questioning that a politician could not get away with. 'How dare you accuse me of lying' is a powerful challenge coming from a cleric with his 'religious leader' hat on, but would be ridiculed if it came from a politician.

Muslims use a number of strategies to either conceal the more barabaric aspects of their religion or to decieve people about Islamic doctrine. The initial deception is semantic. Literally, they say one thing and mean another, the opposite of calling a spade a spade. This typically involves using a dual meaning that is generally only understood by Muslims, or using Arabic terms. The initial deception is followed up with a number of rhetorical techniques that create a barrier to effective communication. These are essentially a form of diversion. While some of these tricks are familiar to a western audience, some are largely unfamiliar and play on islamic concepts with which the west is unfamiliar.

Dual meaning

The first tactic used is to attach a dual meaning to common english words such as war, peace, slave, innocent etc. This tactic is so successful because it is so different from the typical 'western propaganda' approach of inventing new jargon. For example, where a deceptive western leader may talk about 'colateral damage' to make civilian deaths in war sound more benign, a decpetive Muslim leader may say 'no one was murdered', on the grounds that the killing was legal. In this case, the deception is obvious because most english speaking people understand the subtle difference between muder and kill. However, by carefully controlling how Islamic doctrine is translated into english, muslim scholars have created a situation where many common words have an entriely different meaning when used in the context of Muslims or Islamic law. This is combined with an insistance that to 'truly understand' the Koran one must study it in Arabic, thus putting the context or meaning of the words used beyond the reach of most non-Muslims. Thus, Muslims will understand what their leaders are saying, even if most westerners do not. This can be quite blatant manipulation, such as when some UK clerics stated in public that it is wrong to kill innocent people, then said to their followers in private that only Muslims can be considered innocent. [1][2][3][4][5]

Being so simple, this tactic is most often employed in press releases. As an example, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens appeared to support the fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie during question time after giving a lecture at a western university. The next day he released a statement to the press reassuring the public that he does not support vigilantism. [6] Of course, he was not available to give any further details. Most assumed he did not want Rushdie dead. However, closer inspection appears to show that Cat Stevens did not actually oppose the death penalty for Salman Rushdie. He did think it would be wrong to shoot Salman in the back of the head in some dark alley. Rather, Salman should have been hauled before the relevant cleric, who had already found him guilty, so that he could be stoned to death in an orderly, 'civilised' manner.

Another common example is the claim that Islam is peace, or is peaceful. The utlimate objective of Islam is indeed a peaceful existence, however this peace is achieved by Islam conquering the world. [7] Until that time, all non-Muslim areas are considered to be at war. Those areas that are ruled by Islam are by definition at peace, even if Shiits and Sunnis are blowing up each other's Mosques. Thus, 'Islam is peace' is a technically correct statement about the 'final solution' of Islam and about those lands that are ruled by Islam, but is totally deceptive to those who do not already know what it means.

Muslim leaders will claim in public that Australia shares a lot of values in common with Islam, or that Australia is a Muslim nation, or that Australians already practice Muslim values. In private, they will call for the destruction of western decadence. [8][9] They will express outrage at new citizens being expected to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia's values system. They will claim that Muslims strive to obey local laws, but will also call on other Muslims to reject anything other than Sharia law as heresey. They will claim friendship with non-Muslims, but privately preach that friendship with non-Muslims is wrong and should lead to ostracism. They will claim that Islam is peace, but privately preach that there can be no peace until the entire world has been subjugated to Islamic law. [10] They will make friends with Christians, then preach in private that Christianity is vile. There are even passages in the Koran that promote the use of terror. [11]

Rather than making a plain English translation available to the general public along with explanations, the Koran is made impenetrable by mixing up the verses so that they are out of order and the context is lacking.

Arabic terms

Rather than inventing new jargon, Muslims insert Arabic terms into english. These terms have a complex meaning that is relatively well understood to most Muslims, but is totally unknown to the target audience. A Muslim spokesperson can thus make a statement that appears to be a universal principle, but which muslims understand only applies to certain situations.

Taqiyya, ironically enough, refers to deception. A muslim may say for example that Taqiyya forbids lying, which is technically true, depending of course on the context. However it does not appear to forbid deception. Furthermore lying is only allowed in certain situations, such as war. But remember the dual meaning – any non-Muslim land is a place of war. Using the word Taqiyya in public carries all of these complex and contradictory connotations, which are known to Muslims. Thus Muslims are not lied to even when non-Muslims get the wrong idea.

These two tactics are usually sufficient to dupe most disinterested audiences. They work well in press releases where further explanation is not available, as the media has no choice but to pass them on as-is, leaving the public unaware that the true meaning is totally different from the face value. However several more interesting techniques are used in online forums where dialogue is inevitable. Even though this medium encourages direct questions and the resolution of ambiguities, it can still be remarkably difficult to get the real story from a Muslim. Muslims achieve this by creating as many barriers to effective communication as possible. Again, this relies on the underlying assumption that a Muslim would want you to know what Islam is really about. However, in reality a Muslim is more than happy to wait until some time in the future when your country has been conquered by Muslims before you find out how nasty it can be. All of these strategies have been observed on the OzPolitic forum.

Simple diversion

The first trick usually employed on forums is a simple diversion. If you ask 'do Muslims think it is OK to do this?', they will respond by listing examples of where something similar (no matter how remote the similarity) has been done to Muslims. This shifts the debate away from Islamic doctrine and how it seems immoral to most westerners, to a blame game over who is responsible for past attrocities. Thus Islamic doctrine is not exposed and the debate switches to from moral standards to politics or history.

The most obvious example of this is terrorism. Most Muslims will say that terrorism is wrong as it is unavoidable, but they then go on to list all the grievances of the middle east. They may also deny that Muslims bear any responsibility for reigning in Islamic terrorists. Many claim that the reigning in of terrorists should not be a first step in the peace process, but rather a last step. [12] However that is where the explanation stops. Muslims will not explain why they think this. Instead they will bring up some media report of an accidental civilian death attributable to a western army. I suspect that Muslims think this way because they see all non-Muslim lands as being a place of war. One hint of this is that they will refuse to distinguish the deliberate mass murder of civilians by terrorist organisations for which no person or nation can be held accountable, and the accidental death of civilians in an armed conflict with a guerrilla army that hides among civilians. Thus, destroying the twin towers is an act of war in a place of war and is no different to the death of civlians in a 'real' war zone. However, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get a Muslim to either admit to this or to offer some other explanation for why terrorist organisations should be given free reign until their various (largely unspecified) demands have been met.

Already answered

The next trick is usually to claim that the question has already been answered. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] This is usually combined with the implication that you are stupid for having to ask for clarificiation. This trick is basically a throwback to the deceptive use of dual meanings and unfamiliar terminology, except that it avoids the need to explain it again and risk giving away too much information. This trick is usually first used when you start asking more specific questions that are getting closer to exposing the particular deception.

Islam doesn't exist

This is a more interesting form of diversion. If you ask why something happens in a specific Muslim country, you will be told that that country is run by a western imposed dictatorship, monarchy, democracy or whatever. Even though the particular barbaric practice strongly resembles Islamic law, it is the west's fault for preventing Muslims from setting up a 'prefect' Islamic state. For example, it is the west's fault that Saudi women must cover up from head to foot because they are responsible for the Saudi royal family, which prevent the 'correct' Sharia law that allows women to expose their face and hands, provided other standards of dress are met. It has nothing to do with 1400 years of Islamic law that instilled a belief that women are responsible for their own rape if they act like a 'piece of flesh'. [25][26]

In an amazing feat of mental gymnastics, Muslims will also do the opposite, sometimes even in the same discussion. If you ask them about an aspect of Islamic law they wish to hide, they will claim that it is irrelevant because there are no true Islamic states. That is, if no country in existence today is ruled totally by Sharia law, you have no reason to be interested in what Sharia law is. [27][28]

Hypersensitivity

The next trick is usually employed if you try to justify a request for clarification after Muslims insist that questions have already been answered or that you have no reason to be interested anyway. The Muslim will become hypersensitive at the suggestion that you do not trust them to give you a straight answer. Alternatively, they will accuse you of asking 'loaded' questions, as if there is something wrong with discovering the truth about Islam. Curiously, the more specific and direct the question is, the greater the tendency to claim it is loaded, even if it carries no assumptions at all, or only assumes what has just been verified. That is, a question is loaded if it is a simple, direct question about Islam. [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

Semantics

If both of these tricks fail, the next option is another diversion. This time instead of diverting to politics or history, the Muslim diverts to semantic issues. This takes advantage of the control that Muslim scholars have over translation of the Koran. It works in a similar manner to criticising someone's spelling in the middle of a heated debate – except of course that it is part of a broader strategy. First, they simply point out that you used an incorrect term. The correct term is not suggested and the actual question is ignored. [36] If you ask for the correct term they may suggest you ask someone else. [37][38] They cannot possibly 'just answer it anyway' and explain what the issue is.

One favourite term for this is cleric, which is used in the media to refer to Muslim religious leaders. If you ask why a cleric said something, or why a person is still a cleric after doing or saying something objectionable, they will simply respond that there is no such thing as a cleric. [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] Technically this can be true, but only if you assume that cleric means clergy, rather than the currently accepted additional meaning of Muslim religious leader. The absence of an 'official' clergy has another advantage for Muslim propagandists, in that it allows total diffusion of responsibility. There is no leader or institution to be held accountable, therefor Islam is not to blame. More specifically, a Muslim leader who does or promotes evil acts can be simply dismissed on the grounds that they are not a 'genuine' Islamic leader, while at the same time denying any responsibility among the broader Muslim community for actually preventing it. Despite direct requests, I have still not been able to get a straight answer on how a non-Muslim should go about verifying what is a 'genuine' Islamic law (other than not asking direct questions in the first place. [49]). Muslims will even claim that there is no such thing as a Muslim leader in the absence of a perfect Islamic state. [50]

On another issue, I had been asking a group of Muslims for some months about two issues – slavery [51] and sex (eg Polygamywomen in IslamSufism, sodomy and Satan). I had been lead to believe that sex outside of marriage is punishable by death, and that Muslims are only allowed four wives. This had covered just about every concievable 'crime', including prostitution, extramarital affairs [52], homosexuality [53], bestiality [54], pedophilia, masturbation [55] etc. Naturally it eventually came up in one of the slavery topics, as a simple question about sex slaves, which had been mentioned in a media article. The usual tricks were employed – diversion to examples of sex slavery in non-Muslim countries, insisting all my questions had already been answered, accusations of ulterior motives and 'loaded questions'. When I still kept asking, I was told that sex slave is the wrong term, so there are no sex slaves. Eventually I figured out what the correct term is – concubines. By this stage it was fairly obvious that Islam does permit concubines, but I had no idea under what circumstances. In fact I still dont, because when I asked about concubines, I discovered the next trick....

Dummy spit

If all else fails, spit the dummy. Make more accusations of ulterior motives, stirring up trouble, asking loaded questions etc. Then, simply refuse to answer. [56] After one such dummy spit I started a new topic specifically about concubines and after more criticism of my questioning style, I got a limited affirmative response, but no more questions about concubines and their treatment have been answered. [57][58] Yet I have been told in great detail how badly the west treats women.

The concubine saga

The discussion of sex slaves is what originally drove me to write this article. After writing the first draft, I went back through that particular discussion and noted all the different deflection tactics used. I was actually quite surprised at how 'thick' the discussion was with various deceptions. Here are some of them. I include the URL for each link, as the number on the end of the URL indicates the post number in the thread.

Initially, the topic of sex slaves was asked by another member in the 'women in Islam' thread:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/112#112

The various deflection tactics were employed over the next 53 posts. A summary is given below:

semantics, Islam doesn't exist, deflection with an insult, accusation of loaded question

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/112#112

deflection to other religions, direct answer to related question that doesn't paint Islam in a bad light

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/112#112

deflection to judaism

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/125#125

attempt to justify deflection to toher religions

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/128#128

refusal to answer and already answered - ironically in same post, semantics

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/134#134

Islam doesn't exist, respond to question 'is it allowed' with 'it is not a priority'

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/136#136

Islam is 'realistic', but won't say how

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/138#138

defelcts to attacking democracy, Koran can only be read in Arabic

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/140#140

defelction to generic attack on 'the west'

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/142#142

ad hominem (insult), refusal to answer, already answered,

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/144#144

deflection to homophobia in Europe, other religions, semantics, deflection to history rather than Islamic law, deflection to catholics, Islam doesn;t exist, response on whether it is required rather than allowed, subjectivity of immorality

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/145#145

ad hominem, already answered, lie (flase claim that sex slavery does not exxist in Islam), deflection to the west,

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/146#146

deflection to other religions, ad hominem

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/149#149

Islam doesn't exist, deflection to other religions

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/152#152

deflection to 'the west', Islam doesn;t exist, refusal to answer

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/155#155

semantics

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/159#159

deflection to other religions

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/163#163

deflection to other religions

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1216537027/167#167

It was only after I started a new thread that I got a direct answer to the question of whether Islam eprmits sex slaves. However, no further details were given.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1224559466

What to do?

All of these tricks ultimately take advantage of ignorance. The antidote to this is to make people aware of them. A lie becomes ineffective when enough people see it for what it is.