How Nazism Explains ‘Moderate’ and ‘Radical’ Islam

How Nazism Explains ‘Moderate’ and ‘Radical’ Islam

If Islamic doctrines are inherently violent, why isn’t every single Muslim in the world -- that is, approximately 1.5 billion people -- violent? This question represents one of Islam’s most popular apologetics: because not all Muslims are violent, intolerant, or sponsor terrorism -- a true statement -- Islam itself must be innocent. Let’s consider this logic. There are many people who identify themselves as Muslims but who do not necessarily adhere to or support Islam’s more supremacist and intolerant…

The all-important difference is this: when it comes to Nazism, the world is agreed that it is a supremacist ideology. Those who followed it to the core were “bad guys” — such as Adolf Hitler. As for the “good Nazis” who helped shelter persecuted Jews and performed other altruistic deeds, the world acknowledges that they were not following a “moderate” form of Nazism, but that their commitment to Nazism was nonchalant at best. This is the correct paradigm for viewing Islam and Muslims: Islam contains violent and supremacist doctrines. This is a simple fact. Those who follow it to the core were and are “bad guys” — for example, Osama bin Laden. Still, there are “good Muslims.” But they are good not because they follow a good, or “moderate,” Islam, but because they are not thoroughly committed to Islam in the first place. Put differently, was Schindler’s altruism a product of “moderate Nazism” or was it done in spite of Nazism altogether? Clearly the latter. In the same manner, if a Muslim treats a non-Muslim with dignity and equality, is he doing so because he follows a legitimate brand of “moderate Islam,” or is he doing so in spite of Islam, because his own sense of decency compels him? Considering that Islamic law is unequivocally clear that non-Muslims are to be subjugated and live as third-class “citizens” — the Islamic State’s many human rights abuses vis-à-vis non-Muslims are a direct byproduct of these teachings — clearly any Muslim who treats “infidels” with equality is behaving against Islam. So why is the West unable to apply the Nazi paradigm to the question of Islam and Muslims?