Many ancient societies believed that a magician who knew a person's true or secret name could wield power over that person.  Cavendish's Legends of the World (1989) elaborates, "In magic, the name of a thing IS the thing. ... [T]he name contains in itself the essence of the animal's being, the quality which makes it what it is and not something else."  In Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, nobody reveals his or her "True Name"; rather, everyone goes by a nickname for everyday use.  Political Islam similarly conceals its true or secret name behind the everyday name of "religion."

Magic cannot defeat a menace like political Islam, but science can.  The science behind this particular legend is the fact that knowledge or revelation of something's true nature or identity conveys the power to master or even destroy it.  Colonel Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare (1954) reports, for example, that the Allies stuck Fedor von Bock with the name Der Sterber ("he who dies," or more generally "let's go get killed") after he spoke of the German soldier's duty to die in battle.  This simple name conveyed the image of a commander who was reckless with his soldiers' lives.

Political Islam thrives because it is very bad manners to attack another person's religion -- indeed, some European countries have enacted laws to criminalize "defamation of religion."   Religion therefore equips political Islam with a shield or mask that was never available to other expansionist ideologies like Communism and Nazism.

Exposure of political Islam as such removes its principal defense and provides the means to destroy it.  These include the same rhetoric and opprobrium our society once directed against Nazis, Communists, and other totalitarians.  The next step is to name the specific characteristics of political Islam that deny it the social and cultural protections to which a genuine religion is entitled.

Islam Was Designed for Conquest

Islam is a sufficiently recent creation to allow its examination from a historical perspective.  Mohammad was a merchant and a warlord who created a religion to unite his allies against common enemies, and there is ample proof that he superimposed the Judeo-Christian God on a pagan moon deity to co-opt an entity known as Allah for his own purposes.

Political Islam stands out as the sole modern "religion" that does not conform to these two statements by Jesus: "My kingdom is not of this world" and "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's."  One need not believe in the literal Antichrist of Revelation to accept the underlying scientific model: specifically, the combination of God (religion) and Caesar (secular leader) into a single entity.  A clear-cut violation of the ancient separation of powers between the executive (king, chief) and clergy (priest, shaman, or medicine man) obviously has apocalyptic implications.

If the priest, or False Prophet of Revelation, empowers the executive by interpreting the omens correctly -- and Alexander the Great made damned sure that his soothsayer Aristander got them right -- the consequences can be horrific.  The Mahdi, as portrayed by Sir Laurence Olivier in the movie Khartoum, assumed both priestly and executive roles by claiming to have had a revelation from Mohammad (False Prophet role) and then leading his followers in a holy war (Antichrist role).  Mohammad himself assumed both priestly and executive roles, specifically those of prophet and warlord.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Antichrist role), meanwhile, promises that the Twelfth Imam (False Prophet role) will soon appear on his watch.

Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism all facilitate the practitioner's relationship with God and/or his personal growth and enlightenment through meditation.  All these faiths recognize and accept separation of church and state.  Political Islam is, however, the sole religion on earth that seeks to merge God and Caesar into a single entity, and it shares with Communism and Nazism the openly stated agenda of dominating the entire world.  To this we can add personality cults characteristic far more of totalitarian ideologies than of any genuine religion.

Personality Cults: A Danger Sign

Linebarger's Psychological Warfare states:

The Communists had shown that a modern man-god could be set up and worshipped in a twentieth century state, and called leader (Vozhd in Russian). ... The Communists had shown that an organization calling itself a party, actually a quasi-religious hierarchy with strong internal discipline, definite membership, and active organizational components, could control fifty times its own membership. ... [S]uch a movement needed to have youth branches, women's organizations, labor sections, clubs of its own, and so on, calling this "mass organization."

The man-god or Vozhd is yet another description of the unholy merger of God with Caesar.

The cult of the leader explains abstract poster images of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and so on, often in heroic poses with protruding jaws.  Brian Schwarz and Thomas Lifson have pointed out that the Obama campaign has used similar images, particularly the one by Shepard Fairey.  No other presidential aspirant has ever done this -- or placed his initial on something very similar to the presidential seal -- and this is a very dangerous sign.  It is, meanwhile, particularly damning that militant Islamic nations also display pseudo-religious images of leaders both living and dead, such as Ayatollahs Khamenei and Khomeini, in contravention of Islamic prohibitions against even implied idolatry.

The Koran Speaks with Forked Tongue

The Koran, meanwhile, contains totally contradictory statements, which is an indicator not of divine inspiration, but rather taqiyya or deception.  The Koran says that Jews and Christians are fellow believers in Allah while proclaiming simultaneously that Muslims must not accept them as friends.  To the latter it adds, "May Allah destroy them."  (See The Cow, The Dinner Table, and The Immunity for specifics.)

One side of the Koran's mouth therefore offers peace and fellowship to infidels, while the other incites hatred and war against them.  Native Americans would say it "speaks with forked tongue," which is what Genesis says the serpent did to Adam and Eve.  Perhaps Mohammad confused God's eternal adversary with God when he wrote this material.  This reinforces the conclusion that Mohammad created a religion, or superimposed one on a pagan moon god, to unite his followers for the self-serving purpose of expansionist warfare.  Even non-Christians can accept the premise that while Jesus died for Christians, Muslims died for Mohammad.

In summary, political Islam is the only purported modern religion that (1) has sought on more than one occasion to merge God and Caesar into a single entity, (2) involves personality cults and even quasi-religious and hence idolatrous images of leaders, and (3) seeks to create, by force if necessary, a kingdom of this world.  The Koran's self-contradiction on infidels, meanwhile, allows its dismissal as an artificial creation (as opposed to a divinely inspired document).  Political Islam is therefore nothing more than an expansionist totalitarian ideology like Nazism and Communism, and we can therefore treat it not as a religion, but as a hostis humani generis -- an enemy of civilized humanity.

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management, including content on organizational psychology as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.