Whispers of Men
-
Everett Piper Everett Piper's Blog
- Updated Jan 20, 2011
In his
book The Crisis of Islam, Bernard
Lewis, one of the foremost historians of the Middle East and the Islamic world,
says:
"By
now there is an almost standardized litany of American offenses recited in the
lands of Islam, in the media, in pamphlets, in sermons, and in public
speeches... It [cites] the enslavement, importation, and exploitation of the
blacks…and of immigrants in the Untied States… More broadly, the charge sheet
includes support for Middle Eastern and other tyrants, such as the shah of Iran
and Haile Selassie of Ethopia, as well as a variable list of [other] Arab
tyrants..."
Lewis
continues: "Yet the most powerful accusation of all is the degeneracy and
debauchery of the American way of life, and the threat that it offers to Islam.
This threat, classically formulated by Sayyid Qutb, became a regular part of
the vocabulary and ideology of Islamic fundamentalists, and most notably, in
the language of the Iranian Revolution. This is what is meant by the term the
Great Satan, applied to the United States by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Satan
as depicted in the Qur'an is neither an imperialist nor an exploiter. He is a
seducer, ‘the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men' (Qur'an
CXIV, 4,5)." (pp. 80,81)
Do you
ever wonder why other cultures so distrust the West? Perhaps the answer lies
not in the opinions of progressive talking-heads on cable TV or in the "wisdom"
of our politicians in Washington, D.C., but in the mirror as we watch ourselves
thoughtlessly listen to the "whispers of men" rather than the mandates of God
and, thereby, foolishly abandon the very values and virtues that used to earn
us respect rather than hatred of the Arab world.