Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Gottingen University in Germany, said a few months after September 11, “Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms, these mean different things to each of them. The word ‘peace,’ for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al-Islam – or House of Islam – to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought. Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or House of Peace.” That’s why they blew up Bali in 2002, and last weekend, and why they’ll keep blowing it up. It’s not about Bush or Blair or Iraq or Palestine. It’s about a world where everything other than Islamism lies in ruins.
Islamist Way or No Way
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