Professor at Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome: Islamic State not un-Islamic, “model is Muhammad himself” | Nicolai Sennels

Professor at Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome: Islamic State not un-Islamic, “model is Muhammad himself” | Nicolai Sennels Oct 6, 2014

Where is the border between Islam and Islamism? The media says that the two are different as night and day; Islam is a religion of peace, and the Islamists have stolen the name. Others believe that Islamism represents the traditional, pure Islam, true to the Koran.

This latter view is advanced, remarkably enough, by a theologian Martin Rhonheimer from a university endorsed by the Pope. He is a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and wrote an essay on this particular distinction in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.


You do not hear many official Muslim voices condemning Islamic State, says Rhonheimer. And when it finally happens, it is usually only to condemn the bestiality because it harms Islam’s reputation. The Islamic State is no heresy, but “a recurring pattern in the history of violent expansion. The model is Muhammad himself.”

“Islamic State’s legitimation finds its basis in the Koran and Islamic law, the Sharia,” believes the Catholic professor. He states: “You will find no arguments within Muslim theology that can be used to condemn Islamic State’s behavior as un-Islamic.”…

Martin Rhonheimer then goes through the suras in the Quran that prescribe what should happen to the conquered Christians and Jews, and points out that the Islamic State strictly adheres to these regulations. Islam would like to influence the state and society in details, emphasizes Rhonheimer.

“Islam is more than a religion. It is cult with political and social rules and unites religion and and political and social order in one. And it has always been violent,” he says.[...]

Moderate Islam has its advocates, often professors at Western universities.

“But they are confronted with Islam’s central problem: when they return to Islam’s origin, they come across the warlike, expansionist Islam from Medina, the legitimacy of killing for Allah’s honor and a violent Muhammad,” writes Rhonheimer.



Link to source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/10/professor-at-pontifical-university-of-the-holy-cross-in-rome-islamic-state-not-un-islamic-model-is-muhammad-himself